Ditz

Issue date: 2/2/09 Section: Inside the Bubble

Making signs for Election Day

When one of the most politically charged elections in the history of the United States occurs, with an African American and a woman among the major party candidates, what does the most liberal student body in the country do? Participate in the only Campaign Semester offered at any college in the nation.

Occidental College, which according to the Princeton Review ranks #1 for the most liberal student body in the nation, offered students the opportunity to directly participate in the ground-breaking election of 2008. Three professors created an innovative semester program, with students working for a presidential, senatorial or congressional campaign in battleground states across the country. Students who participated in Campaign Semester worked in the field for the campaign of their choice, while also receiving a full semester worth of college credit for all of their work.

The program was the dream child of Peter Dreier, a Politics professor at Occidental. Dreier, along with colleagues Caroline Heldman and Regina Freer developed the program hoping to, as Heldman said, "give students a 'real world' campaign experience without making them take a semester away from college."

Hanneman recruiting voters

The program consists of a ten-week period of fieldwork in the campaign of the students' choice, and five weeks at the end of the semester back on Occidental's campus where they complete a seminar class and an independent research paper of 25-30 pages. The three components of the program make up the three courses each student must enroll in to participate. By the end of the semester, the students completed 16 credits, a full semester's work of worth.

Nineteen students enrolled in the Campaign Semester for the 2008 election year. Of those enrolled, all chose to work on the Obama campaign. Two students had shown original interest in working with the McCain effort, however they did not ultimately participate in the program. Tessa D'Arcangelew, a junior Diplomacy and World Affairs major at Occidental, decided to work for the Obama campaign because in her eyes, "Barack Obama was the first real prospect for change our country has seen in a long time." Junior Urban and Environmental Policy major Nonda Hannamen also chose to work for the Obama campaign because she leans with the Democratic Party both fiscally and socially and felt inspired by Obama. In addition to working on the Obama Campaign, Hannamen also worked for Mark Warner's (D) senatorial campaign and Tom Perriello's (D) congressional campaign.







The swing state of Virginia, where both Hanneman and D'Arcangelew worked this semester, was more crucial than ever this time around, after John Kerry's loss by an average of 12 votes per precinct back in 2004. The work that the students completed was of important not only to the campaign offices where they were assigned to, but also in the bigger picture of the overall presidential election.

Students were placed in offices around the country, quickly trained, and then set to work: organizing phone banks, calling voters, going door-to-door, coordinating volunteers, registering voters, transporting voters, managing their offices and doing everything in their power to educate people about the campaign and encourage them to go out and vote. D'Arcangelew said many of the people she reached out to had never had any face-to-face experience with a political campaign so the efforts of all of the campaign volunteers and workers were vital to the decisive victory among undecided voters. In Hannamen's office, over 3,000 new voters were registered over a period of only one month.

With all of the work that had to be done, the large amount of responsibility and control, and very little formal training, students found that the experience was frustrating at times. However, overall students said that the knowledge that they gained was well worth it. Hanneman preserved even through her had times because she felt obligated. As she recalls, "I felt compelled to work on this campaign not only because our country so desperately needs change right now, but because and I am so extremely confident in Obama and the policies that he has set forth." This opportunity has been worth it for her, and she said she would not have given up a semester at Oxy for any other candidate.

Phonebanking before election day

The students were not learning facts from a book. Instead they learned life lessons from true life experiences. D'Arcangelew grew from this experience and learned from the people who came into her office and, as she put it, "offered truly brilliant perspectives on the campaign, our country and humans in general." Hannamen had a similar experience and appreciated being able to take a step out of her comfort zone. Her testimonial for Oxy's campaign semester program is an important an eloquent one. She states, "At the end of the day, test scores are just numbers and not necessarily a reflection of knowledge. I have gained more knowledge in this experience than I have in any typical semester in school, and it is knowledge that will stick with me far past the semester ending."

So what does the most liberal student body in the nation do when presented with a historical election? They get out there to work, learn, and vote.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools