By NICK VILLALOBOS
Student Reporter
The Northwestern Secular Student Alliance has received national recognition for its impact on campus.
A year ago in September, the SSA officially become a club here at Northwestern. A Northwestern biology professor developed the idea to have an open-minded, non-judgmental coming together of diverse people at 4:30 p.m. each first and third Thursday and every second Friday of each month. The club includes Christians, atheist and agnostics as well as anti-theists.
Matt Schneider is the president of SSA. Each meeting he brings forth various topics, such as current events, science and politics. Members then take the topic that is presented for the night and discuss or debate it. “The more religions, beliefs and amount of diversity there is, the better the debates are. In the end though, we are still all cool with each other,” said Northwestern junior and retuning SSA member Danny Pacula.
Members say that when the SSA made its debut on campus last year, it received a bad rap. The words “atheist” and “anti-theist” spooked away many potential new members; Northwestern’s location in the Bible belt was a disadvantage in trying to establish the club. However, the fact that this is the Bible belt is also an advantage for the club. The large amount of churches in the area provides plenty of opportunities for new members to join the topic discussions each meeting and put in their two cents on the debates as well.
The exact purpose for SSA, according to its bylaws on the Northwestern web page is “to create an atmosphere of fellowship among all students and community members no matter what they believe.”