The Popularity of Being Politically Aware

By: Elisabeth Steinhardt
Posted In: News

In the first semester of the academic year, student Brendan McQuade founded Students for a Democratic Society, a club that meets once a week to discuss candidates, elections, protests and more.

McQuade, a freshman political activist at Salve, feels that his generation should be anything but bored. Because Americans are living in “exciting times,” McQuade encourages peers to “at least vote for your wallet and vote for taxes.”

For his peers who aren’t what he calls “politically savvy,” but want to get involved, he suggests, “finding something you’re passionate about and to keep an open mind.”

McQuade also said, “Give them [the uninvolved] a cause and they could get motivated.” McQuade isn’t alone. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, political awareness among current college freshmen students rose for the third year in a row making political awareness the highest it has ever been.

In a survey of college freshmen nationwide, 33.9 percent felt that keeping up to date with political affairs was a very important or essential life goal. Students are becoming more interested in politics, making one of the smallest voting groups represented in elections, 18-24 year olds, an even bigger group.

McQuade has been politically interested since the seventh grade when he chose to read the book 1984, by George Orwell. After not understanding half the book, he did research, sparking his interest in politics. Since then, he hasn’t turned back.

Students for a Democratic Society, along with other political groups among colleges in Rhode Island such as Roger Williams University College Republicans (RWUCR), prove that political awareness among college students, and especially college freshmen, is indeed at an all time high.

Opposed to the liberal views of Students for a Democratic Society, RWUCR is “college club committed to spreading a conservative message,” according to its website. With 35 active members, this club is about three and half sizes bigger than McQuade’s SDS club at Salve.

At about the same time Students for a Democratic Society was getting started, RWUCR was receiving negative feedback for targeting homosexual activists in their newspaper, “Hawk’s Right Eye.”

According to their website, rwucr.com, they said, “We criticized a coterie of homosexual activists who advocate self-destructive behavior and who try to censor our thoughts using legislation.” After counter attacks from activists and other Rhode Islanders, the group expressed their right to express the First Amendment.

Other freshman remain uninvolved, even in a hotly contested election year. Keith Lattuca, a freshman at Salve who is not registered to vote, also considers his political views as being right wing. But he is among the majority of the 18-24 year olds that have not registered to vote. His excuse: “Laziness.”

Furthermore, he says he is in the dark about the registration process and uninformed of his options of obtaining an absentee ballot. Contrary to the Chronicle’s report, Lattuca said he believes that many of his peers are not politically aware. “I don’t think I’m totally aware,” Lattuca said. “I don’t think half of this school is.”

When it comes to the importance of political awareness, Lattuca said that it “depends.” He believes that only if you are a registered voter do you have to stay abreast of current political events.

Lattuca said he considers himself politically aware, but only due to the convenience of CNN.com. He said he can log on, read the top stories and headlines or even watch a news clip. “It’s so easy!” he said.

For McQuade he believes that “if you got people to talk about politics as much as they talk about sports, we’d all be more aware.”