Knight A. Creating Change: Inspiring Student Humane Education Campaigns. Paper presented at: Alternatives in the Mainstream: Innovations in Life Science Education and Training. 2nd InterNICHE Conference; 2005 May 12-15; Oslo, Norway


Abstract

Students are among the most powerful advocates of humane education in the world. As a veterinary student at Western Australia’s Murdoch University, my campaign of 1998–2000 introduced humane alternatives to widespread animal killing in physiology and surgical laboratories, and resulted in Australia’s first formal conscientious objection policy guaranteeing humane alternatives for students who request them. Since then student colleagues have made it possible to graduate from all Australian veterinary schools without killing animals in surgical training. Students at several additional campuses worldwide have achieved similar successes in recent years, collectively ending laboratories in which hundreds of animals were killed annually, and successfully campaigning for conscientious objection policies. The key to the enormous successes of students lies in two factors. Firstly, compassionate students required to personally conduct animal experimentation or dissection are usually far less desensitised to these procedures than faculty members, and are often highly motivated to campaign for humane alternatives. Secondly, unlike external campaigners or academic staff who risk being fired, enrolled students have enormous power to demand that their institutions fulfil applicable legal or ethical obligations to teach in ways that respect students’ conscientiously held beliefs against harming animals. Consequently, a highly effective strategy for advancing humane education involves showing compassionate, ethical students that it is possible to learn without killing, and providing them with the resources they need to win humane education campaigns, such as those gathered for this purpose at www.LearningWithoutKilling.info. My Australian and New Zealand Humane Education Campaign targets the 33 Australian and 8 New Zealand university campuses offering three or more courses likely to use animals, providing a model of how students in these courses might be reached. My offer to pay students to post leaflets on biomedical student notice boards is achieving results, and advertisements and articles are being placed in student magazines. Additionally, my humane education essay competition for high school students offers substantial cash prizes. Similar campaigns around the world should result in a large number of successful humane education campaigns.