Images of massive anti-war protests, “flower power” and peace and love are not images likely seen on college campuses today, especially not in the “Deep South.”
College administrators viewed college students as very liberal 30 years ago, a sentiment that seems to be dying on today’s college campus.
A 2003 Harvard University Institute of Politics survey showed that today not all college students are Democrats, a political party often associated with “liberal” political views.
According to the survey, although there still are more Democrats than Republicans in college, the gap between the two major parties is closing, and there has been an increase in students who do not consider themselves a member of either party.
In 2000, 34 percent of college students considered themselves Democrats, 28 percent Republicans and 33 percent Independent. Following Sept. 11, 2001, 29 percent considered themselves Democrats, 31 percent Republican and 39 percent Independent.
This year, the number of Republicans has decreased slightly, and Independents have increased considerably since 2000.
While these are nationwide numbers, the trend in the “Deep South” – schools in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia – areas that traditionally have been more conservative than the nation as a whole, are seeing a rise in more vocal conservative students and increasing numbers of Independent students.
Wayne Parent, political science department chairman, said LSU students generally come from suburban areas of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, which is roughly 60 percent Republican.
He said LSU is a conservative campus but thinks the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State are the two most conservative campuses in the Deep South.
Christopher Kenny, a political science associate professor, said he has not noticed a sudden shift in conservative thought at LSU but rather a slight trend toward more liberal thought, even though the campus still is conservative.
He said the opinion on campus “ebbs and flows” as popular opinion fluctuates.
He said the divide between liberal and conservative students is more pronounced at Ivy League schools than Southern schools.
Tom Strong, dean of students at the University of Alabama, said he does not think the changes in conservative college students have been overly dramatic.
He has worked with students at Alabama for the past 35 years.
He said there is no question the atmosphere is more conservative now than it was when he first started there. He attributes the rise in conservative thought to career goals rather than social consciousness.
“I think students today are more career-oriented,” Strong said. “They come to the University to get a degree and make a meaningful career.”
He said college students in the 1970s were more “socially conscious” than “career-oriented,” as students are now.
Others contribute the rise in conservative thought to classroom issues.
Bruce Barrett, associate professor of statistics at the University of Alabama and adviser for the University’s College Republicans, said the organization is quite strong at the University.
“Many students are turned off by the liberal slant in classrooms,” Barrett said, “so they look for a different outlet.”
Barrett said students are about half liberal, half conservative, but he estimates that a much greater percentage of the faculty is liberal.
Kenny said in his experience, college professors are generally more liberal than the population as a whole, but he does not think conservative students feel their opinions are stifled.
Barrett said the schools that have the “homegrown” students – ones born and raised in the South – are the ones that are the most conservative.
However, he still recognizes the traditionally idealistic views of college students and thinks they are just becoming more realistic.
“If you’re not a little bit liberal at one time, something is wrong with you,” Barrett said.
Tradition, another typically “Southern” characteristic, is seen as specifically important to students at the University of Mississippi – Ole Miss.
The University’s Associated Student Body President Hardy Case said he thinks Ole Miss is the most conservative school in the Deep South and that is the way it has been always.
Most other school officials interviewed in the SEC agree with Ole Miss’s self-proclaimed sense of conservative “values,” including students at LSU, the University of Alabama, Mississippi State University, Auburn and the University of Georgia.
Case said there was a move toward patriotism after Sept. 11 but not necessarily toward more conservatives.
Krystal Williams, president of the College Democrats at LSU, said she does not think being patriotic and being conservative are the same thing but thinks the word “liberal” has become an evil word because of the recent political situation.
“I knew a girl, who was actually my lab partner, who was from Chicago and she didn’t know what was going on down here,” Case said. “It was a major culture shock for her.”
The Greek community – those in sororities and fraternities – makes up 30 percent of the Ole Miss population of 13,009 students, and Case said he thinks this contributes to the conservative traditional feeling on campus.
Richard Bishop, Mississippi state chairman for the College Republican National Committee, said Ole Miss’s membership in College Republicans increases every year and says 85 to 90 percent of its campus is conservative.
The College Republicans at Ole Miss have between 800 and 900 members, Bishop said.
Winston Collier, who attempted to start a College Democrats chapter at Ole Miss, said it was hard to get students who were Democrats to participate in the organization because the College Republicans is the largest organization on campus.
Those who did decide to participate in the organization were “so far to the left” they did not represent the majority of democratic thought on campus, Collier said.
College Republican Chairman at Mississippi State University Thomas Harvey said there has been an increase of up to 200 members this year alone at College Republicans.
These numbers are reflected at LSU’s chapter of the College Republican Alliance, said Shawn Hanscom, the alliance president.
This year, the alliance started out with 450 members, which increased to 750 after the spring and “well over 1,000” this semester, Hanscom said.
Williams said College Democrats at LSU is the strongest it has been in years, with between 30 to 40 students who regularly attend meetings and more than 200 people on its listserv.
Even though the organization is becoming stronger, she does not consider everyone who participates in the organization to be a true Democrat.
“Most of them aren’t liberals but moderate students,” Williams said.
She agrees that LSU is a generally conservative campus, but made no predictions as to which “Deep South SEC” school is the most conservative or liberal.
Sundeep Sood, the minority affairs chairman for the University of Georgia Student Government Association, said most students on campus are conservative because they come from suburban areas of Atlanta, which is a mostly conservative area.
He contributes the high number of conservatives to students mirroring the opinions of their family and to the low minority rate, which is 5 percent out of 30,000 students.
Case, the Ole Miss student body president, thinks LSU is the most liberal school in the Deep South and the rest of the schools in the “Deep South SEC” agree.
Sood said he thinks LSU is the most liberal school in the bunch because Louisiana is “just a weird state.”