为什么要麻烦，威斯康星州? 因为我们的民主是值得的
来源:Alex GarciaI am writing this letter as 贝洛伊特’s Resident Advisors are busy preparing for the upcoming year, the football team has begun their (hot) practices for the fall season, and Orientation Leaders are getting ready to make the newest 贝洛伊特ers’ transitions to their new academic home spectacularly welcoming 和帮助ful. Opening Convocation and the first day of classes are right around the corner.
Amid all the excitement and anticipation for the year ahead, 然而, hardly a day goes by in which higher education publications do not have an article or two on how deeply many students disengaged from their college experiences as last year came to a close — one of the many consequences of 更多的 than two years of a pandemic. 在美国面临的巨大挑战中.S. colleges and universities is how to help students reconnect 更多的 often and 更多的 deeply to the schools they are attending.
同时, the fundamentals of what makes a democratic society work are being tested this fall in ways that are outside my 40-plus years of experience as a voter. As we hurtle toward November 8th and the midterm elections, the act of voting — the linchpin of democracy — matters in ways that would have been unpredictable a decade ago. This is not a partisan sentence; it is a sentence about my concern for the future of a political system I deeply love that is being undermined daily. 投票事项, 一如既往, in the determination of political outcomes, but it also matters as a way of expressing support for the essence of democracy.
So, this fall we are launching and leading a new 倡议 with colleges and universities in Wisconsin and in neighboring states to help students understand the importance of voting, to make it easier for them to cast a ballot, and to build a lifelong habit of voting. 被称为 “干嘛麻烦你，威斯康辛州?” 倡议, we have created a variety of resources that help students register, 找到他们的选票, 确定他们的投票地点, 和帮助, 如果他们愿意, 在选举过程中. This is accompanied by exciting on-campus programming to bring the 倡议 to life, not only this fall but in subsequent election cycles.
简而言之, we are seeking to engage our students in the core act of being a citizen in a democratic society — voting. 事实上, we are asking other colleges and universities to join us in turning November 8th into a day of democratic action. We will provide the space for this by substituting this day of active democracy for the classes students would have otherwise attended and look forward to other colleges doing likewise.
There is good reason to be optimistic about the 倡议’s outcomes. The Institute for Democracy in Higher Education reports that in 2020, 66 percent of eligible college students voted, 高于2016年的52%. This puts college students at about the same rate as the general population. Trying to turn this encouraging data point into a trend and then an expectation is the 倡议’s point. Helping to make engaged citizenship a habit needs to be an important part of a student’s 贝洛伊特 experience.
Arguably we have probably been too complacent over the last few decades in helping our students appreciate how important voting is as an act of democratic citizenship. 当然, we have done a variety of things aimed in this direction, but we have not made it a key priority. 今年不同了. By the time you read this, the outcome of these efforts will be known. I hope you will be seeing in one form or another evidence that our efforts made a difference not only at 贝洛伊特 but across all of higher education in Wisconsin.
I conclude with a short reminder of one of the most important statistics of the 2020 national election. A record 155 million Americans cast legal ballots. This was nearly 67 percent of the eligible population, up nearly 5 percentage points from the 2016 election and 7 percentage points from the 2000 election. Americans responded to 2020’s challenges by directly participating in our democracy. That is 更多的 than just a glimmer of hope in our future. 让我们保持这种势头.
在查平的办公桌上, it is a great day to celebrate 十大菠菜台子’s role in developing engaged citizens.
斯科特·比尔曼总裁
presidentsoffice@hntcwedding.com
