Fighting Flock: New Class puts Community Activism into Practice

Mathew Biadun | News-Editor

Above: A photo of the Community Organizing Class. Prof. Clements stands second-from-left.

3/23/2026 - "All politics is local," the old saying goes, and one Eastern class has taken it to heart. A group of passionate students have applied their activist energies locally, preparing a presentation arguing against the installation of controversial Flock cameras in Windham.

PSC365 Community Organizing is a new class being offered this semester, designed by Sydney Clements. Clements, who had served as an adjunct previously and is now Eastern's newest professor in the Political Science department, drew on her own roots of community activism to design the class. "The current political climate has made a lot of people disengaged," she told the Lantern. "I want to show students that they have real power in the community and can make things happen."

Clements' original idea was to have the class focus on the Willimantic Footbridge, a beloved staple of local infrastructure which had to close due to safety concerns. However, that idea, alongside a couple others such as homelessness and campus parking, lost out in a ranked-choice ballot of competing topics. The winning topic was Flock cameras, suggested by student Mitchel Florczak.

Flock cameras are Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR); a form of camera which can automatically scan license plates to issue fines or citations automatically for violations such as speeding or running red lights. The cameras have drawn concern from a number of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, for privacy violations, such as for providing information to federal authorities. Despite these concerns, four Connecticut towns currently have contracts with Flock Safety - Cheshire, Darien, New Canaan, and Southington. Windham is amongst many other towns now considering the cameras, with the City Council beginning to consider their adoption last summer.

The class' goals are to convince public officials to not adopt Flock Cameras. To accomplish this, the class aims to bring important local stakeholders to Eastern, and provide a presentation on the cameras to them. Some of the local officials the class plans to invite include Mayor Tom DeVivo; town manager Robert Zarnetske; the Chief of Police; and several City Council members from different political parties.

Careful consideration has been put into the group's messaging, and how they plan to appeal to the stakeholders. "Privacy is the middle ground," Katie MacLean explained. "Everyone can agree that we should protect privacy. Everyone can agree the town needs revenue - so we should specify we aren't against revenue."

Along with reaching out to local officials directly, the class has also discussed gathering support from local community groups. One such groups is Grow Windham, a local youth group focused on community gardening and social justice activism. How best to communicate with the younger membership required its own consideration as well.

"They probably won't understand what 'A.L.P.R.' means," Cassidy Irwin said thoughtfully. "But if we can put it in layman's terms, they will understand it."

Another student, Gabe Villalba, simplified it further. "Put it in a really big number."

The group plans to deliver presentations to these groups sometime in April. For now the class has split into different departments, covering important areas like 'Research' and 'Outreach'. The class always talks excitedly, bouncing ideas back and forth amongst each other. Decisions are made collectively after discussion, with work dolled out between different members. Prof. Clements hopes to make this class a recurring choice for students; though for now, it is only being offered this semester.