Class promotes political awareness

Politics have now expanded to the classroom. \nThe C223 Business and Communications class is promoting voter awareness for the 2008 election through a class project that has set up a mock election coupled with an informative Web site. \nTaught by professor Mark Harrison, the class has the goal of informing the student body of the upcoming election and the policies behind the candidates’ campaigns.\nFor this project, the students have taken charge and have been running the class. The goal of the project is to teach students how to manage meetings, while the project functions as a public service program, said junior Bradi Andrews, a member of the class.\n“It’s a lot of people’s first time to vote ... And we think it’s very important that they know about it, especially since Indiana counts this year,” Andrews said. \nIndiana counts in this year’s Democratic primary because of how close the delegate count is between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, Andrews said. \n“I think that’s been one of our biggest challenges is trying to have so many students be interested,” said sophomore Miller McDonald, a student working on the project. \nThe class breaks up into different groups to discuss and work on different aspects of raising political awareness. The groups include marketing, research, communications and Web site design, Andrews said. \nThe Web site includes information on the three presidential hopefuls: Obama, Clinton and Sen. John McCain. Under each candidate’s tab, the site includes a short but detailed summary of the candidates’ lives thus far, as well as a concise overview of his or her policies for the presidential campaign. \n“It’s just the facts,” said sophomore class member Jennifer Marantz, emphasizing that the Web site’s information on all of the candidates is unbiased. \nMcDonald said new information is added all the time to the Web site. \nThe Web site also includes details on how, when and where a student or any of the site’s viewers can register to vote. Additionally, it provides the criteria to be eligible to register and vote. Andrews said a major aspect of the site is its detailed instructions on how students can vote absentee. \nThe class will also be holding a mock election, Andrews said. The mock elections ballots were collected and counted Thursday. \nMembers of the project contacted and invited all of the candidates for the election to IU. Only Obama’s campaign replied saying he was interested and would keep the invitation in mind.\n“He actually was here, but I don’t know if we had anything to do with it,” McDonald said about Obama’s surprise visit to the women’s Little 500 race. \nThe class Web site can be found at voteiu.googlepages.com.