It was right before I ate breakfast at a diner in Washington D.C. when I realized that all the work Sam Vaghar '08 and I had done forming the new club, Students for Peace, these past few months had paid off. At that point we could no longer control whether or not the day would be amazing. We had made our plans, tried to find things to do in D.C. and we could only hope that everything would turn out well.To be honest, both of us had our doubts when we formed this new club-especially me. There seemed to be a certain amount of negativity when people were asked to join our club or come to a meeting. Nonetheless, Sam and I decided this was something worth pursuing.
On Nov. 3, the night of the election, Sam and I sat down and discussed our nation as best as two 18-year-olds could. We had decided that it was time to put our plans into action. While we discussed our plans before that night, I don't think either of us took them too seriously before the night of the election.

To put these plans into action, we decided to form Students for Peace. In a little over a week, we were chartered and ready to start taking action. Our first plan was to make the trip to Washington D.C. to attend the inauguration of President Bush.

We observed how the Brandeis campus seemed to be at a loss for words after Bush's victory. Many felt betrayed, many lost their hope, and many sought excuses for what happened. Many liberal students were angry towards conservatives on campus, while many conservatives were "sore winners" and insulted liberals. It was a rather disgusting image of Brandeis for me. I came here because I expected to find activism, not this.

Sam and I felt that these were the wrong paths to take. Instead of giving up, people need to believe that change could be made. Instead of forgetting the idealism that has helped to form our country, people need to embrace and use it to make positive changes. Instead of hatred toward individuals of different political beliefs, people need to work together for a better America, and, in our case, a better Brandeis. We wanted a club that would help people work for a better future, for a peaceful future.

The trip to Washington D.C. was created for this reason. We wanted to provide members of our club a chance to go down to D.C. during the inauguration and either show their support for or their anger toward the Bush administration. We also paired up with the Brandeis Republicans to provide even more students with the ability to get to the inauguration and to provide members of both our clubs with the chance to hear other people's beliefs. It was a way for people to stop being apathetic and to start getting involved.

Our plans for the future revolve around similar ideas. We are planning several conferences and events to bring people together and to promote bipartisanship-some involving club leaders and some involving students. We are also planning to raise money for local efforts to help both the communities at Brandeis and communities in the greater Boston area.
Peace, being the idealistic concept that it is, is not easy to achieve. And for a small group of students from a small university, such a goal is quite a challenge. But why not work towards such a lofty goal?

A goal like this is never achieved immediately; it takes time and work from more than just a small group at a college campus. We can do our part in reaching this goal though. We can make the world a better place, even if it is only a little bit at a time.

Editor's note: Eric Pekar is President of Students for Peace.