Six weeks after the death of conservative media personality Charlie Kirk, the university now has its own chapter of Turning Point USA, the organization he founded.

Turning Point officers stand with the College Republicans chaplain at the Charlie Kirk candlelight vigil. Pictured left to right: Connor Hague, Naomi Lyday, (Photo courtesy of Connor Hague)

The local Turning Point chapter has become a recognized student organization, which was announced on TPUSA’s Instagram feed on Oct. 5. The group is led by its five officers: Cole Edgar, president; Connor Hague, vice president; Tanner Dobbs, chaplain; Aubreigh Muniz, treasurer; Grace Stegemerten, secretary. The Turning Point GroupMe contains over 400 members.

The group’s sponsors are: Dr. Neal Coates, department chair of Government and Criminal Justice, and Cheryl Steffins, academic adviser for Kinesiology, Nutrition and Health Sciences majors.

The university’s chapter is associated with the national non-profit organization founded by the late political activist Kirk in 2012. According to the TurningPointUSA website, the organization’s mission is to “identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.”

“Our goal is to be 100% faith-driven while still incorporating friendly conversation,” said Hague, junior marketing major from Boerne. “Like Charlie Kirk said, the second people stop talking, things get violent, and so that’s kind of our main mission is just to have faith-based discussion and keep peace.”

After Kirk’s assassination, Edgar said he began to push more for a TPUSA chapter, but he was not the only one. Hague, Dobbs, Muniz and Stegemerten were all working individually to start a chapter, so the organization told them to join forces.

“We all came together with the same common goal of trying to get this organization established so that we could bring it to campus, because we all believed it was much needed,” said Edgar, freshman kinesiology major from Prosper. “We all make a really good team, and we came together and came up with a plan to move forward, and we got in touch with Student Life, and everything just kind of went from there.”

Edgar said the process, however, did not come without challenges. One of the initial challenges was finding a sponsor for the chapter.

“I had been in touch with a few advisers who did not like the idea, and who opposed the idea and said that it would be bad for the campus,” Edgar said. “They even said that what I’m trying to do, like all the values, all the beliefs, and everything is great, they just didn’t like the name, and they didn’t like where Turning Point came from.”

Once the group got approved, they also faced challenges with educating the community about their plans, especially those who oppose them. Hague said overall, the feedback has been mixed.

“We’ve had people thrilled about it,” Hague said. “We’ve had people trying to reach out and give us money. We’ve had people who absolutely despise it, but they don’t really give us many reasons why.”

Some of the negative feedback can be seen on the group’s Instagram @acu.tpusa. Among the critics is Erick Aguilar, senior communication major from Poway, who said he does not understand why Turning Point claims to be non-partisan when he believes their messaging is far from it.

“I can’t wrap my head around how you really use Christianity – use your religion – to justify your political gains,” he said.

Aguilar said he does not think Jesus would fit into any political views.

“I think he takes a bipartisan approach to a lot of issues and a lot of conversations that we challenge ourselves with today,” Aguilar said. “It’s incredible how [they] can interpret the Bible as saying, ‘Oh, I guess I better be conservative.’ I think that’s pretty ridiculous.”

Aguilar’s comments on Turning Point’s Instagram reflected similar views.

“What part of your political movement would Jesus have condoned???” one comment said. “Don’t worry Lord, I’ll be your brain dead conservative yes man. I thought Isiah was volunteering to be a prophet, not a party activist?”

In response to Aguilar’s comments, the TPUSA account replied, “We would love to talk to you if you have time to stop by the campus center on a day we are there!”

Aguilar said he met the group in the campus center, where he spent almost three hours in discussion with them. He said he still does not agree with them, but his conversation was civil.

Civil conversations are a message Turning Point wants to vocalize to anyone who disagrees with them.

“Real conversation happens in person, face to face with facial reactions, with just the different changes in your voice and everything,” said Muniz, freshman management major from North Richland Hills. “So [we’re] just really, like, trying to be like, ‘Hey, this is not getting us anywhere. We’re just hitting a dead end every single time. Like, please come talk. Let’s have a conversation.’”

The group plans to have weekly tabling events in the Campus Center, but said in its chapter GroupMe that administration notified them that tabling events are not allowed. The Optimist is actively working to follow up on the story and has reached out to the administration for clarification.

A Turning Point table displays buttons, brochures and an American flag in the campus center. (Photo courtesy of Connor Hague)

Despite criticisms, Hague said the feedback has been mostly positive.

“The most common feedback we get from the community is, ‘How can we help? We want to help in any way possible,’” Hague said.

Stegemerten said she was not expecting the support from the community. She said people have reached out to find ways to get involved or have TPUSA participate in their events. TPUSA’s next event will be at the Homecoming tailgate on Nov.1.

“We have small businesses reaching out to us from Abilene,” Stegemerten said. “They’re just encouraging us to keep going, and they’re so proud that we’re starting this at ACU. Even though they’re not at ACU, they can still see their family and friends go to ACU and have this club there for them to join.”

For the upperclassman officers, the legacy of the university’s TPUSA chapter is important to them.

“My goal right now is for me to come back to ACU and see that people are still engaging in conversation, regardless of what they believe,” Hague said.