Hamilton Engage

The race for the 2008 Presidential election has been unprecedented in every sense of the word. The U.S. has witnessed its first African American Presidential nominee, its most popular female Presidential nominee, and its first Republican female candidate for vice president in history. Just as significant as these firsts is the surge in youth political participation. This year’s primaries and caucuses brought more than 6.5 million people under the age of 30 to the polls and youth participation in November’s election is expected to break national records. So how do Hamilton students factor into this unprecedented political trend? The Continental sat down with Kevin Rowe—campus coordinator of Hamilton Engage ’08—to find out what his organization is doing to make sure Hamilton students do precisely that this November: engage.

Hamilton Engage ’08 is a pet project of the campus chapter of Democracy Matters, a national student non-profit that promotes civic engagement and pro-democracy reforms. The project, Rowe maintains, “has been evolving since last fall” when Democracy matters held a voter engagement drive. The drive featured a series of voter registration drives, a faculty panel on the 2008 election, and a film showing. “In the spring,” Rowe remembers, “several of us got together and started brainstorming about how to make the biggest possible impact on campus as we approach the election.” The answer was Hamilton Engage ’08: a non-partisan, student-run effort to engage students in the political process and facilitate creative, inclusive, and productive political discourse on campus.

The predominant focus of the Hamilton Engage ‘08 campaign, Rowe explains, is on “registering voters and providing absentee ballot applications.” These efforts have already proved successful. As of September 22, Rowe and others have registered over 200 new voters and helped nearly 400 students get absentee ballots. The project, however, extends beyond voter registration. “We also want to help facilitate students’ efforts to make informed choices on Election Day by providing a series of resources,” Rowe explains. These resources include seven side-by-side issue comparisons in the dining halls, watch and discussion parties for each of the four debates, an organizational blog (engage08.hamiltoncollegeblogs.com) and a series of small-group discussions on political issues in collaboration with other groups on campus. These, Rowe hopes, will provide opportunities for political dialogue and information on a wide variety of election issues such as health care, energy and the environment, social issues, Iraq and Afghanistan, immigration, youth and students, and the candidates’ biographies.

Rowe agrees that the 2008 election is a historic and exciting time for youth in politics. He can see evidence of this unprecedented youth political fervor here on campus. “Based on the response to our project,” he asserts, “it seems that students are really energized by this election.” Ultimately, however, Hamilton Engage ’08 hopes to facilitate political involvement on campus beyond the November election. Rowe believes that the political dialogue on campus leaves much to be desired. Most Hamilton students, he claims, are “turned off by politics. They may register and vote every two years, but a lot of them rightly feel disconnected and unrepresented by state and national politics on a day-to-day basis.” Rowe also believes that the political dialogue at Hamilton is largely unbalanced. “There is a fairly small group of students actively involved in political groups on campus, and they are by and large progressive. I think the campus would benefit from more outspoken and active conservative students and groups.”

While Hamilton Engage is geared towards the 2008 election, it is clear that its goals extend far beyond November. Rowe and others want to make sure this year’s increased youth participation becomes the political rule, not the exception. “That’s why we’re calling the project ‘engage’,” Rowe concludes. “We want to encourage students to engage in the political process not just this fall, but more importantly for their entire adult lives.”