On Graduating and Moving On From Campus Organizing

Jack Nuckols — Fri, 22 May 2026 19:23:37 GMT

I remember it vividly. March 25, 2025. We had just marched across campus to the Inn at Virginia Tech, where the Board of Visitors was sitting in session. The day before, we had listened to what they had to say about the cancelation of the Student Life Village, which would have added roughly 5,000 beds to campus, among other issues like arguments about rollbacks to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives to fall in line with the Trump Administration’s white supremacist beliefs. It didn’t help that most of the BOV at that point had been appointed by then-Governor Glenn Youngkin, who was more than happy to have his lackeys fall in line.

The energy was high and we were hoping (at least I was) that the BOV would keep at least some of the DEI initiatives kept around, such as Ujima, the African-American Living-Learning Community, and Lavender House, the LGBTQ+ LLC. Call me naïve, especially given hindsight, but we had mobilized one of the largest protests in Virginia Tech history with what felt like thousands of us marching to show our displeasure.

Around that same time (I do not remember when I first heard it) heard a conversation that one of our organizers had with Nancy Dye, a GOP donor from Roanoke who failed to get elected in 2015 in spite of spending over 23% more than her opponent, the day before on March 24 where she brushed off our concerns about it. Portions of it have been edited into the video below or listen to it in full below that.

We were crushed by the Board’s decision and we let it impact our organizing too much. It was the second time in eleven months that we had been extremely let down by the University, the first being their brutal crackdown on the Gaza Liberation Encampment that previous April where they refused to negotiate with us and arrested over 80 students, faculty, staff, and community members.

After we returned in Fall 2024, we (YDSA) had formed the Students’ United Front alongside Students for Justice in Palestine and the Environmental Coalition, but the biggest problem was that we did not ever decide on what SUF would look like structurally, even when we had our march on the BOV. That hampered our ability to have a solid structure to such a high degree.

In terms of the “electoralism vs unionizing” strategy debate that we love to have inside (Y)DSA, if someone advocates for 100% of one and none of the other, just stop listening to them right then and there. Finding whatever blend of the two works best for your chapter, movement, or organization helps to ensure that if one doesn’t work as well, there can still be a bit of a pivot. The exception to this is to have a partner org with a lot of overlap that focuses on one and you on the other with enough communication so that both party’s rank-and-file is filled in on what is happening so that they can focus on what suits their strengths the best.

I don’t want to spend too much of this talking about regrets because that will do us no good. I learned a lot of very important lessons in my two years with YDSA also. It was an opportunity for me to “touch grass” in terms of talking IRL with other leftists instead of just sitting and lurking on the Hasanabi broadcast or the cesspool known as X, the Everything App in spite of everyone still calling it Twitter. Seeing what problems are important for people around you is the only way to make people understand why we are socialists. If you just sit online, you have no clue what the average layperson around you is concerned about, even if you have every survey with a p value of 0.05 or lower telling you what the issues are.

One of the books that I read for my Social Movements class in Fall of 25, Hegemony How-To by Jonathan Smucker, is an incredible read about the lessons he learned from the Occupy Wall Street movement and IMO it ought to be borderline mandatory reading for organizing along with No Shortcuts by Jane McAlevey.

Get outside, pet a dog, exercise in some way, and don’t forget the good things that you have going and celebrate every small win. As much as I love to do it, you can’t wallow in your own self-pity and get people to join a movement. Don’t be afraid to have a little fun, have a game night, watch a movie together, hit El Rod’s after a meeting because it’s social events like these, even the most informal, that get people to join us. Come for the Arroz Con Pollo, stay for the socialism.

I’m going to miss Tech and all of the organizations I was a part of there a lot. The solidarity that we had for each other made it so much easier getting through the hard times and made the good times feel that much better. I love yall.

Coming soon

YDSA@Virginia Tech — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:37:37 GMT

This is The Maroon Rose, Virginia Tech YDSA’s member-led media gallery. Comrades will publish monthly articles, opinion pieces, poems, and artwork. In April, our chapter will publish pieces on liberation theology, “The Outsiders”, and archival pieces from former members.

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On Graduating and Moving On From Campus Organizing

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