Last week the Vegetarians Taking Action (VTA) stood outside Hughes-Trigg showing a four-minute video, “Glass Walls.”
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian,” Paul McCartney said in the documentary “Glass Walls,” which shows footage secretly taken inside factory farms where animals are bred and slaughtered under cruel conditions.
According to Jean Kazez, faculty adviser to the student group Vegetarians Taking Action, (VTA) “10 billion animals are killed for food in the U.S. every year, and we can’t let ourselves be ignorant of how it’s done. The whole system is mind-bogglingly cruel.”
This was the driving mentality behind the VTA’s showing of “Glass Walls.”
As an incentive, VTA paid students passing by the event $1 to view the four-minute film. At the end of the event, VTA had paid out $45 and had 20 students expressed interest in the group.
While the event was considered a success by the numbers, according to Jonathan Moore, vice president of VTA, the real success was getting students to admit, “I had never thought of that.”
Moore said the video screening was useful because “we made people more aware of what they’re putting in their bodies.”
According to the founder and president of VTA, Audrey Archer, “VTA is made up of people who find the meat industry unsettling and who want to take a compassionate stand against animal cruelty.”
Archer believes in the power of consumer choice.
“Every time you check out at a grocery store, you’re casting a vote. You’re aiding a consumer demand,” she said. “That’s powerful, and I don’t think people realize they have that power.”
The first of its kind at SMU, VTA began as a Facebook group in November of 2010 and was started by Archer. The online group grew rapidly in membership, and soon became a go-to source of information on the ethical, environmental and health benefits associated with a vegetarian lifestyle.
Moore says that one of the goals of VTA is to give options to people like Masterson who are considering vegetarianism, but who might not know how to get started.
He describes the club’s recruitment strategy as straightforward, but sincere.
“When we show footage, it’s really aggressive, but it’s the ugly truth,” Moore said. “As a club, we try to put on a friendly and accessible face so people feel like they can approach us and get involved.”
VTA hopes to achieve a fully chartered status as a club by fall 2011 and is always looking to inform students on the benefits of vegetarianism.
For more information on how to get involved with VTA, check out http://people.smu.edu/mbolanos/vta/.
