Friends of LittleSis,

For many, this time of year means one thing: it’s back to school! But students aren’t just returning to classrooms – they’re entering crucial sites of corporate power with plenty of opportunities for organizing. Historically and today, college campuses are sites of powerful activism and resistance. From taking on union-busters to securing divestment from climate-destroying fossil fuel corporations, students can have a major impact on some of the biggest fights we now face. With this in mind, LittleSis has created some unique resources to support on-campus organizing!

Starbucks’ egregious union-busting tactics are coming under increasing scrutiny and now students are turning an eye to their own campuses. In fact, after Starbucks shuttered all of its corporate-operated stores in Ithaca, NY following staff unionization, students at Cornell University – which is based in Ithaca – successfully campaigned to kick the coffee chain off of their campus. Now students at other universities are following suit. This is an amazing opportunity for solidarity! Will your campus be next?

Our latest research guide – The Starbucks Power Network is on Your Campus – will walk you through how to research your college or universities ties to Starbucks through executives, board directors, banks, attorneys, and investments. Just how deep is Starbucks enmeshed in your university? This guide will help you figure it out. In fact, these research techniques can be applied to researching ANY corporate presence on your campus!

Universities are key nodes of corporate power, and many corporate actors that workers and organizers are up against – from Starbucks to Amazon, ExxonMobil to Chevron – have campus presences. These pieces will help you to better understand how your university of colleges is interlocked with corporate power and – even better – how you can research your own school’s power structure to find more leverage for organizing!

The University of Pittsburgh has a Fracking Problem

Many of the trustees that govern the University of Pittsburgh have deep social and financial ties to the fossil fuel industry. Fracking giants like EQT often take advantage of these important relationships to control their public image and stifle opposition.

Fossil Fuel Directors’ Ties to University Boards Run Deep

University trustee seats greenwash oil companies while casting doubt on higher ed climate commitments.

“Who Rules Columbia?”: How Power Research Supported the 1960s Student Movement

The 1968 pamphlet “Who Rules Columbia?” is a model for organizers and researchers trying to map out university power today.

Visit our news site Eyes On The Ties for more of our research on corporate connections to academia!

Don’t just read about power research – learn how to do it yourself! The upcoming trainings below will offer tips on how to research the corporate power structure, use LittleSis research and mapping tools, and inspiring you about power research can make an impact in history!

Sept 22nd, 1PM ET: How and Why to Research Your Local Chambers of Commerce

Chambers of commerce are coalitions that work to advance an extractive, pro-corporate political agenda, especially at the state and local level. This training will explore how chambers of commerce wield power and tools for researching your local chamber.

Register here

Oct 26th, 12PM ET: Researchers Against the War Machine: Lessons from NARMIC

From the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, an organization called National Action/Research on the Military-Industrial Complex – or just “NARMIC” – provided crucial research support for anti-war, anti-nuclear, and anti-apartheid movements in the U.S. From mapping top weapons contractors and war profiteers, to producing research guides on stockholder meetings, to publishing analyses of the U.S. defense budget, NARMIC concretely aided local and national movements that directly confronted the corporate power behind U.S. militarism.

LittleSis is excited to host NARMIC veteran Diana Roose for a discussion about the life and legacies of NARMIC and what we can learn from it today.

Register here

Nov 21st, 5:30PM ET: Preview The New “Map The Power” Toolkit and Learn How to Build Your Own Power Map Using Oligrapher

We just redesigned our popular Map The Power toolkit with more research tips and tricks, instructional videos, and illustrative graphics to help you build your power research skills! During this webinar training we will show off the newly redesigned toolkit and demo how to map the power using Oligrapher, our data visualization tool.

Register here

Onward,

LittleSis