Five students sat waiting in the mat room of the Lilly Center on Thursday, hoping for others to join them in occupying DePauw.
These five students, members of Ladies and Allies for Cross-Cultural Education, sought to bring awareness to DePauw students about the Occupy Wall Street protests that started in New York City and have since spread to cities and campuses across the country.
Three outsiders joined the group's discussion, but only two of them stayed through the entire event. The third stayed for five minutes before he walked out.
The members said they were very disappointed at the turnout, but not surprised.
Junior Ariana Mckeithen-Mead said that students of the DePauw community often choose not to attend events that do not directly affect them.
"People only show up if it's important to them or if it is for greek life," Mckeithen-Mead said. "If people's fun time is going to be affected, people are not going to care and go to diverse events."
L.A.C.E. seeks to bring the greater issues of activism to students' attention.
"We want to promote diversity and make people aware of things they think are not close to in our community, but these issues still affect us," said Crystal Depay, a junior and president of L.A.C.E.
Junior Cheyenne Sherman, vice president of L.A.C.E., said the group hopes to bring attention to advocacy groups on campus.
"It is important to have events here on DePauw's campus to show DePauw that there are smaller advocate groups on campus that do care about issues that are occurring in the world," Sherman said.
The group said many Americans are taking a stand to fight the government as one group to have their voice be heard.
Occupy DePauw was designed to be a discussion based event in an intimate setting where participants could talk openly about what's happening on Wall Street, how it is affecting the DePauw community and what the campus can do about it.
Sophomore Victor Felipe said he thinks it is important for the DePauw community to be aware of the issue on Wall Street because it affects DePauw's current and future students.
"I want to tell DePauw students what is going on with Wall Street," Felipe said. "I want DePauw to have a voice and to know why we are not paying attention to this issue since it will effect our future."
Depay added that many students on the campus do not think about how world issues affect them. He added that students will be walking into these problems in the real world upon graduation, making them even more relevant.
"Living on campus shelters us from the outside world," Depay said. "It is not until senior year when students begin to worry about what they will do after college how the economy will affect them. They only pay attention to news that is import to them."
This issue is just one that L.A.C.E. has addressed and will be addressing in the future. The group advocates for DePauw students to take action on issues in which they believe.
Mckeithen-Mead hopes DePauw can someday be known for having a community that supports activism.
"It would be great to not just be known for great sports and a great uncommon success rate, but it would be great to be known as a strong activism school as well," Mckeithen-Mead said.