Liberty’s new Turning Point USA chapter finishes first semester of campus outreach for conservatism

Turning Point USA is a club founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk that works to promote political awareness and activism on campuses across America.

“Turning Point USA has, I think, significantly moved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, hopefully to conservative beliefs, and we see that through direct digital outreach and campus advocacy,” Kirk said. “Our goal is to try to get people to think outside of a kind of leftist norm that’s out there and embrace these ideas in ways that they never heard before.” 

Liberty Club President Anna Kelchner has been working diligently since last January emailing SGA, finding a faculty advisor and jumping through the hurdles to achieve approval for an official chapter on campus. 

“It went from having to wait one month for approval to a whole semester,” Kelchner said. “I was working to do everything I could to speed up the process, but everyone kept telling me to wait, so I flew out to Arizona with our vice president Brooklyn to the Turning Point USA headquarters for training, planning goals and seeking advice on the chapter.” 

This September, the approval came through for the official chapter after months of waiting  and a day before the club fair. Since then, the chapter leaders have kicked off their first event with speaker LU alumnus Cabot Phillips with a surprising turnout. 

“We had such an awesome reaction from students during our first event,” Kelchner said. “For us to pull off a 55-person event is such a big deal for our first speaker being less well-known and local. We didn’t know what to expect, but it was so worth it.” 

Currently, the club has over 300 chapter members and is hoping to bring big name speakers to campus next semester. 

According to the club’s secretary Addison Smith, that lineup will hopefully include speakers like Jaco Booyens, director and child trafficking abolitionist and Benny Johnson, columnist and chief operating officer for Turning Point USA, as well as survivors of socialism.

“We want to educate students about free speech, limited government and fiscal responsibility,” Smith said. “It’s more important than ever to not only know what you believe in but also why you believe in it.”