One such leader is Campus Coordinator Cory Massimino, who is a Philosophy student at Seminole State College. We sat down with Cory to talk about his involvement with SFL and his accomplishments as a Campus Coordinator.

If you are interested in applying to be a Campus Coordinator, click here.

David Clement: How have you been involved with SFL thus far and what do you appreciate the most about being an SFL-er?

Cory Massimino: I started working with Students For Liberty three years ago when I saw an episode of Stossel at the International Students For Liberty Conference in 2013. I delved into liberty-oriented internet circles after that, which eventually led to me sending SFL a guest blog post praising Edward Snowden and his treasonous actions. I became part of the SFL blog team that year. Following my good experience with the blog, I applied to be a Campus Coordinator and have been a CC for two years now. In that time I’ve organized events on my campus, assisted in organizing multiple student conferences, spoke at a Regional Conference and ISFLC16 about the prospects of prison abolitionism, helped run academic programs like the Virtual Speakers Bureau and the Virtual Reading Group program, started and hosted SFLive, a Liberty.me podcast focusing on SFL student activists, created the Left-Libertarian digital resources kit for students interested in that flavor of liberty, and taken part in Young Voices to help spread the ideas of liberty. The fact that Students For Liberty has enabled me to organize all of the above is something I’m greatly appreciative of. If it weren’t for SFL and the materials, professional guidance, and educational experience that I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy while part of the organization, I wouldn’t have been able to take part in organizing the things I did. Insofar as the programs and resources I’ve contributed to help people to think about things harder, and maybe see the world a little more clearly, I’m thankful for the vital role SFL has played.

David: You have certainly accomplished quite a bit as a CC with SFL. One of your most recent projects was the Ask Me Anything sessions at ISFLC this year. What made you take this on? What was the feedback on the AMAs? Why is the AMA format attractive to students?

Cory: At ISFLC15 I organized an informal AMA with Dr. Bryan Caplan for two reasons. The first is that I’m a big fan of his work. The second is that while I think the lecture format is a wonderful tool in a conference organizer’s tool belt, the AMA format has some advantages that lectures don’t provide. Where normal lecture format has a speaker talk at students, the AMA format has a speaker talk with students. The AMA format puts both the speaker and the listener on equal footing, to engage in a two-way dialogue. I don’t think many other forms of discussion are as conducive to mutual enjoyment and learning as the AMA format. The ability to ask any questions you’re interested in, in an open conversation, prevents speakers from sticking only to certain topics, even when the audience isn’t interested in them and also enables a real, fluid conversation as opposed to the more cold, impersonal lecture format. For these reasons I’m not surprised that the Caplan AMA was a huge success with tons of great feedback by both Caplan, who enjoyed the open-ended format and the platform to discuss all his ideas, and the students who were excited to ask just what they wanted and get the answers they are really curious about. That’s why at ISFLC this year, I helped organize 7more informal AMAs, with Steve Horwitz, Jeff Tucker, Bryan Caplan (again), David Friedman, Howard Baetjer Jr., Antony Davies, and TK Coleman. These were just a blast to take part in, and again, the feedback was wonderful. Next year, I hope to expand this program to be a more formal aspect of the conference, and hopefully we can enjoy even more AMAs.

David: Well I know we all appreciated those sessions so thank you for organizing them! You were recently acknowledged for your successes with a Student of the Year nomination. What did this nomination mean to you?

Cory: I was unbelievably honored to be nominated for Student of the Year. It felt great to be recognized by my peers for the effort I put into my SFL projects, and that’s a feeling that is rarely matched, especially when you have the quality of peers that you do in SFL. But I was more humbled by my nomination than anything else. Personally, seeing the work of the other nominees and the struggles they’ve persevered against was simultaneously beautiful and offensive.

The other nominees’ work is beautiful because the fight for human liberty resonates with some people like a priceless work of art. The unbreakable spiritualpower that SFL activists have demonstrated over the years, especially among those nominated for Student of the Year, does something for the soul in the same vein as listening to Stairway to Heaven on full volume while cruising down an empty highway. It’s inspires a sense of awe, but not one that’s detached or distant, like the sense of awe you get from looking up at the stars. Instead, it’s awe-inducing because you are in the driver’s seat, with the capacity to advance human freedom with every one of your endeavors that’s born out of your own, fiery agency instead of an order backed up with a gun. Where the awe inspired by the vastness of space reminds us of our infinitesimal irrelevance on a galactic scale, the awe inspired by people fighting for their freedom here and now reminds us of our infinite power on a human scale.

The other nominees’ work is offensive because anytime a human being is denied their freedom; anytime their capacity to choose for themselves is drowned out in a storm of thunderous orders and torrential decrees; anytime the essence of an individual’s humanity is destroyed is an offense to the humanity of all. In other words, the fact that we live in a world where people are given awards for fighting for their humanity instead of simply enjoying it, is offensive. It’s the reason Students For Liberty was created; it’s the reason SFL activists do what they do; It’s the reason I do what I do: to make human liberty omnipresent and our activist efforts irrelevant. I, and the other nominees, are dedicated to a world where none of us get nominated for this work; a world where we aren’t student activists at all; a world where Students For Liberty is completely nonexistent. We are only interested in activism so that one day we don’t have to be. We are only interested in fighting for liberty so that one day we won’t have to be.

To Anna Shnaidman of Jerusalem, Fernando Moreno of Ecuador, Julio Lins of Brazil, Louis Lo of Hong Kong, Yeonmi Park of America, and every other human being out there fighting for their freedom, regardless of if they are recognized at all, I wish you the best in creating a world in which Students For Liberty is dead and gone; where no one wins Student of the Year and no one has to fight for their liberty, but instead lives in a world defined by liberty.