Preface
Read the full Fall 2024 SCDS Dis-Orientation Guide here.
Welcome to the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity’s Fall 2024 Penn State Dis-Orientation Guide! Your time at Penn State will be one of transformation and growth, meeting new people, and having new experiences. At your official orientation, you were shown an idyllic image of what life at Penn State looks like. This Guide has been written in order to counter the incomplete, deceptive, and often false narratives pushed by Penn State Administrators, who you will quickly come to see are not the friends or allies of students, but our enemies. While many of the following articles highlight problems students face and major issues in the university, the point of them is not to just complain, but to genuinely uplift student voices and identify the sources of those problems so that we can collectively solve them. It is out of an immense love for the people that this Guide has been prepared.
This Guide’s articles include pieces written by SCDS, as well as reprints of articles published in other places. You may notice that authors are anonymous. They each asked to remain so because Penn State has a long history of retaliation against those who speak out against official “Happy Valley” narratives. All articles, including the full versions of those abridged in this print version, can be found on our medium page: medium.com/@scdsstatecollege.
SCDS is a grassroots revolutionary socialist organization made up of Penn State students founded in 2021 as Students Against Sexist Violence (SASV). Over the last three years, SCDS has engaged in community organizing and political education through protest, studies, trainings, solidarity work, and more. We have been involved in various struggles for gender emancipation, anti-imperialism, racial justice, anti-fascism, workers’ rights, and more. Follow @scds_sc on Instagram for more information!
SCDS is the sole publisher of this Dis-Orientation Guide and assumes total responsibility for its content. SCDS has made grammatical and formatting edits to the articles included, but has not modified the content of any pieces written by other contributors. Mentions of other organizations, individuals, etc., made by SCDS are not endorsements from those entities unless otherwise stated. We gladly welcome feedback on this project!
We seek to uplift the broad progressive movement at Penn State specifically and in Central Pennsylvania generally. We encourage readers to join local organizations and get involved!
Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity
August 5, 2024
Read the full Fall 2024 SCDS Dis-Orientation Guide here.
