Meet the President of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), Lindsey Max’15! Along with her passion for Tibetan culture, Lindsey is the senior photography and art editor for Alloy literary magazine and highly involved in SAPA.
Her Campus Emory (HCE): How does your joint major of religion and anthropology reflect your passions?
Lindsey Max (LM): My interest in anthro/religion (and, somewhat, in Tibet) actually stemmed from my interest in photography. I’ve always wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic, and the summer after my junior year of high school I went to India on a National Geographic Student Expedition. We traveled all throughout India, starting in the northern region of Ladakh, which is in northern India in the Himalayas near Kashmir. Ladakh is an ethnically Tibetan region and where I first encountered Tibetan Buddhism. When I returned from this trip and was going through my pictures I realized that, while many of them were aesthetically beautiful, they were seeped in religious and cultural significance which I knew nothing about. It was this realization that led me to study anthropology and religion, because I wanted to understand what I was taking pictures of so that I could most accurately and respectfully represent them. I felt really guilty that I had had this incredible opportunity that many people may never get the chance to have and that I had somehow wasted it by not learning enough about the religions and cultures beforehand, and wished I could have a second chance to go back equipped with the proper knowledge.
HCE: How did you become so passionate about a cause that was so foreign to you?
LM: I went on Emory’s Tibetan Studies program the spring of my sophomore year because I literally could not wait to do it. But before I went on the program I honestly did not know a lot about the Tibetan situation, I just knew that there was a problem.
HCE: How did you get involved in SFT?
LM: I signed up for SFT during the student activities fair my freshman year. Fall of sophomore year I attended two SFT meetings, but I believe those were the only two that happened that semester. Our chapter honestly wasn’t very active then. While I was abroad, I learned all about the situation in Tibet and became incredibly passionate about it and wanted to contribute to the cause when I returned, so I applied for an exec position and was secretary during my junior year (last year). Last year’s co-presidents, Tenzin Rapden Lama and Morika Hensley, were incredible and really revitalized the organization. We had events every other week and initially had a lot of new members showing up. Unfortunately, a lot of these new members only attended because they wanted to be in the SFT group photo with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, so after his visit to Emory it was harder to get a big turn out.
HCE: What are your plans for the future of the club?
LM: My plan is to have meetings/events once a month this year. My hope is to have fewer events with a greater turn out, but more importantly my biggest goal is to get a membership that is actively involved on social media. We are not in DC or Geneva or any political center where we could stage protests, and one of the biggest struggles this movement faces is a general lack of awareness that it exists. I believe we can have the biggest impact by raising awareness on social media through sharing articles and photos and videos and petitions.
HCE: How can students get involved with SFT?
LM: If you want to be more involved in SFT, please like our Facebook page- Students for a Free Tibet: Emory University. I would also recommend following SFT International on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram, as they are the ones who post most of the updates and petitions. Other pages to follow are United Nations for a Free Tibet and Amnesty International. Next semester we are having a screening of the short film series “Tibetan Stories” created by the International Center for Mental Health and Human Rights, for which the Center’s founder will be present (date TBD), and we are also working on bringing the Deputy Director of SFT International, Pema Yoko, to Emory to lead a grassroots organization training.