DebateWatch eyes elections

With Election Day less than three weeks away, the American Democracy Project and the Rhetoric Program at Georgia College & State University have been working to educate and prepare members of the community.

GC&SU has adopted DebateWatch, a nationwide voter education program implemented by the Commission of Presidential Debates. The program has provided students with the opportunity to actively engage in the presidential and vice presidential debates by viewing and discussing them with their peers.

Over 120 colleges and universities in approximately 18 states participate in DebateWatch. The National Communication Association identified approximately 75 percent of these participants as first time voters.

Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Janet Hoffmann, expressed her enthusiasm for the program.

“What the DebateWatch program provides is an opportunity for first time voters in particular. This is a great election to be voting for the first time with because it is going to be such a close election. [The program] will help students and first time voters in particular to get information about the candidates that they need to make a good choice, an informed choice,” Hoffmann said.

Hoffmann’s debate practicum in rhetoric hosted and moderated the Student Government Association’s presidential and vice presidential debates in spring 2004; this was the beginning of the process for creating an on-campus debate program.

Hoffmann offered an opportunity for the practicum students to sign up this fall to become part of an implementation team for DebateWatch.

“The students that signed up for the class became the people who helped me to implement, publicize, organize and [they] became the discussion facilitators at each of the DebateWatch sites,” Hoffmann said.

Hoffmann sent invitations to Residence Hall Directors to invite them to host the DebateWatches. Parkhurst, Adams, Sanford and Foundation accepted. These dorms became the “local hosts,” and helped publicize the program.

Hoffmann credits much of the success to the $2000 creative initiatives grant received from the Coverdell Institute, which provided refreshments for the gatherings.

“The idea with the campus-wide DebateWatch was that if we had more sites with fewer people at them, that we could create this neighborhood effect,” said Hoffman. “GC&SU is a community and that’s one of the things that I think is what makes this school special, and is part of its mission.”

Senior and rhetoric and political science major Melissa Lawrence said the discussions sparked new interests for students.

“Many of the students who participated were disenchanted and removed from politics,” Lawrence said, “[DebateWatch] encourages them to evaluate the debates and then afterwards we turn the television off, before the political spin and commentators begin, and have questions and discussion which foster and encourage free-thinking among the students.”

The NCA provides questions to assist facilitators in post-debate discussions. Topics include student expectations of the debate, effectiveness of covered topics and influence on which way students will choose to vote.

Hoffmann said statistics from GC&SU will be interpreted by the NCA as a part of a nationwide research effort to evaluate the influence and format of the debates. GC&SU also used the Sept. 30 DebateWatch as opportunity for students to register to vote. The Law and Student Society Organization (LASSO) made certified registrars available at three DebateWatch locations. Hoffmann said most students were already registered, but over a dozen people received assistance filling out absentee ballot requests.

Hoffmann plans to head up the project again for GC&SU during the 2008 campaign. One of the main focuses for the DebateWatch will be involving the out-lying community.

“In 2008 when we do this again, I’m really going to try to focus on ways to make it more of a town-gown affair. That may mean moving the sites to off-campus, maybe to some place downtown.” Hoffmann said. “Democracy is really a civilized argument about how people should govern themselves. Our Democracy is only as strong as the willingness of the people to engage in that argument.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 15 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry