N.C. State’s campus is a short drive away from the North Carolina General Assembly, where lawmakers create, debate and pass laws affecting the entire state. The irony is, however, that the University has a long history of political indifference among its students and faculty members.

According to David Zonderman, associate head chair of the History Department and Faculty Senate Chair, professors and students at N.C. State have long had a reputation of being politically inactive.

Zonderman said being in the South, which has been historically more conservative and less active, and the profile of students who previously attended the University, have contributed to a politically idle campus.

“Up until recently, we were a University of predominantly young men studying engineering and agriculture, and many of them had a more instrumental view of college,” Zonderman said. “They would say, ‘I’m going to college to get a job and nothing’s going to get in the way. Politics is for somebody else.’”

Zonderman said N.C. State’s status as a historically STEM-based school could be a factor for why other liberal-arts schools, namely UNC-Chapel Hill, are more politically active. 

In fact, the North Carolina Historical Review claimed N.C. State was one of the last colleges to get involved with anti-Vietnam War protests.

Zonderman said this climate of political indifference extends to faculty members specifically, and that he hasn’t seen any dramatic increases or decreases in professors’ political activity.

“Overall, faculty on this campus tend to be less political mobilized and engaged,” Zonderman said. “The majority of faculty don’t seem to be terribly concerned always with how the University is run, where it’s going and what the vision is. A lot of our faculty seem to say, ‘I’m taking this course, I’m in the lab doing work; If the guys upstairs leave me alone, I’ll leave them alone.”

Jim Martin, professor of chemistry and former chair of the Faculty Senate, agreed with Zonderman’s sentiment that faculty members at N.C. State aren’t politically active.

“In my experience, department to department, there isn’t a lot of variation in terms of who is politically active, Martin said.  “There are a few that are, but in general most are not.”

According to Dick Reavis, an associate professor of English who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, professors are currently less active compared to the mid 1960’s when activism was “ten times what it is now.”

“My general observation is that professors are far more cowed and apolitical than they were in the 60’s,” Reavis said. “This indifference in politics doesn’t just affect young people.”

Zonderman said faculty in different colleges at N.C. State may have strong political beliefs and may be campaigning for a candidate, for example, but they very rarely mobilize.

In part, this has to do with the profile of N.C. State faculty members. 

“Many of them are involved in more technical fields and say they’re not going to get involved in political issues either on or off campus,” Zonderman said. 

Martin and Reavis said most faculty members aren’t outspoken about their political beliefs because they are afraid of potentially harmful consequences.

“I think increasingly across the nation, political activity has decreased because more faculty have felt vulnerable to budget cuts, a lack of grants, and more administrative control because there is a fear that engaging in political activity will have repercussions,” Martin said. “When that fear is present people tend not to engage.”

“The bottom line is you have freedom of speech until  you have to earn a living,” Reavis said. “Then your employer decides how much freedom of speech you have.” 

However, Martin said that because we live in a democracy, political engagement is required, even for professors.

“I do not support the non-engagement at all,” Martin said. “I believe very strongly if we are to live in democracy, it requires our engagement.

Zonderman said state laws could also be contributing to politically indifferent faculty members that don’t have a willingness to mobilize. 

North Carolina has laws that restrict organized labor, Zonderman said. In some states, faculty can form unions and lobby for higher wages and benefits, but in North Carolina, no public employee can get a legally collectively bargained contract—something the United Nation says is a fundamental human right, according to Zonderman.

“You can form a union, but it will be powerless in terms of contract rights,” Zonderman said. “Only North Carolina and Virginia have that specific law. The UN says that it’s a fundamental human right to form a union and for that union to collectively bargain on their behalf. It would be hard to mobilize our faculty even if we wanted to.” 

Reavis said University professors were also more sympathetic to activism during the Civil Rights Movement and anti-Vietnam War protests. Though they had families and couldn’t afford to move to the South to participate directly, they were mostly supportive. Reavis said he wouldn’t expect the same sympathy today.

“At least some professors encouraged us,” Reavis said. “I was able to take exams from jail, and I don’t think that would be offered to me today. I don’t know how professors today would handle that, but it’s not really an issue because students today don’t go to jail. I’d say a lot of them were saying ‘you’re doing the right thing, kid.’”

Reavis said he is pessimistic about the future of professor and student-led activism at N.C. State.

“I suppose that when the underemployment of graduates becomes more severe that some sort of political consciousness will begin to occur,” Reavis said. “We’ve seen five years of that, and I’m not seeing much awakening yet. There will come a time when the minimum wage will become an issue for college graduates because half of them will have to work minimum wage jobs and that will filter back onto campus.”

However, Reavis said an active campus community could have the potential to solve certain issues, such as tuition increases. 

“They could limit tuition increases, but the general mentality is one of adjustment, not of resistance, and I don’t know what it’s going to take for that to change,” Reavis said. “If the legislature were to pass a tuition increase, 10,000 students being on the capital grounds protesting would certainly have some effect.” 

Reavis said the current generation is facing more difficult circumstances than his did, and that the current atmosphere is not conducive to people doing anything about it.

“I’m not very optimistic about the short run, and I’m not going to live to see the long run,” Reavis said.

Zonderman said it takes issues with a lot of intensity to mobilize N.C. State’s campus, such as years of budget cuts.

“They either don’t put all the pieces together and see that budget cuts often lead to increased tuition, or they say they don’t have time, or they don’t care or they don’t think protesting will make a difference,” Zonderman said. “Even issues that hit students right in their pocket books don’t seem to provoke much mobilization.”

Martin, who serves on the Wake County School Board, said though faculty members may be politically reserved, they need to fulfill their duty as critical thinkers that promote democracy and engagement among the student body.

“Faculty members were hired to be thoughtful people who can give effect critiques in their specialty, but who were also trained to be critical thinkers, and democracy depends on effective critical thinkers in society and a government to make sure that works,” Martin said. “I strongly encourage them to be engaged in political process.”

Martin also said faculty members should at least get involved in politics to contribute to education policy, which has strong budgetary implications.

“About 60% of the North Carolina state budget goes to education, and it’s important that people who understand and have experience with education should be engaged in that budget,” Martin said.

However, professors should be wary about which issues they become involved with and know the difference between engaging in politics as a citizen and as a professor.

“One does need to have limits in terms of political advocacy for your own cause,” Martin said. “It would out of line to go and try to lobby legislature for research funding for myself, but it would be appropriate to work for research support for entire University system as long as you understand the boundaries and limits.”