On Campus: Harper Club Wins National Award

The Harper College chapter of Young Americans for Liberty beat out over 400 colleges and universities to be named National Chapter of the Year at the organization’s fifth annual convention in Arlington, Virginia, on July 31st.

To get the nomination, the club sponsored a series of national activism projects including a Thanksgiving dinner and clothing drive for Timothy’s Ministries in Arlington Heights, a war memorial for Veteran’s Day and a state representative panel hosted at Harper.  The success of the activism projects earned Harper’s chapter a nomination – one of only two community colleges to be nominated – while a national online vote named them Chapter of the Year, beating out colleges and Universities nationwide including University of North Carolina and UW-Madison.

Scott Lietzow, the President of the Harper College Chapter and the Illinois State Chair of Young Americans for Liberty, credits the dedication of the club’s 23 members for the honor.

“The Liberty movement is growing bigger every day, and I am just so excited that Illinois gets to be a leader in this new chapter of politics,” Lietzow said.

The award, Lietzow says, will hopefully help Harper’s chapter host the regional convention on campus next spring. For now, he’s focused on new activism projects and recruiting new members to replace those that have graduated and moved on to four-year universities – one of the challenges faced by clubs at two-year schools like Harper. “We want to make sure this club stays around for a long time,” he said.

The club, still less than a year old at the College, was started up by Lietzow in the Fall of 2012 after he attended the national conference and was inspired to start up his own chapter. In its first year, Young Americans for Liberty was awarded Club of the Year and Lietzow named Officer of the Year by the Office of Student Involvement.