With the second of three presidential debates leading up to the Nov. 6 election behind us, both President Barack Obama and his republican opponent Mitt Romney turned up the heat on Tuesday night’s debate, while around 70 Grand Valley State University students gathered in the Kirkhof Center’s big screen theater to watch.

The viewing, sponsored by Speech Lab, was spearheaded by the same associate professor of communications that helped to kick start the Speech Lab earlier this year.

“My area of research is young adults and politics – so that’s what I’m most passionate about is how do we encourage young people to be involved in talking about political issues and politics and elections,” said Danielle Leek, associate professor in the School of Communications.

She said the presidential debates are not only a chance for students, like the rest of the country, to see the candidates in action, but also a chance for them to thing about how their issues translate to issues and aspects in their own lives.

“By getting people together to watch the debate, afterward they can say ‘hey remember when Obama interrupted Romney,’ or when Candy Crawely said, ‘sorry, Mr. President, we’re going to have to move on.’”

“I think what’s interesting about this is it’s not that young adults or college-age students don’t care,” Leek said. “It’s that we don’t ever create opportunities for people to talk about these issues. We act as if talking about politics is something that is taboo. People are afraid to try out the way something sounds.”

Brendan Bilski, who works at the Speech Lab as well as in North C living center as a resident assistant, agreed. He thinks that it’s not apathy that’s keeping many students from actively engaging in the election process, but a lack of understanding.

“We just don’t talk about politics anymore, so we don’t know what direction to look in, much less to actually pin down. So, blue or red – it makes little difference when you don’t understand,” Bilski said. “(This event) will start helping students to actually put into more concrete detail what they believe and how that translates to politics.”

Bilski, who has been interested in politics in high school, said he’s not an undecided voter, and developed his political ideology over a long period of time. But for the students who haven’t, he said he thinks part of the issue is the perception of an individual’s role in the election process.

“The underlying assumptions of our culture are that we don’t need to worry about politics, that it’s not our responsibility,” Bilski said. “And I think that once people start to see that they do have a responsibility and that they can make a difference, then they will be much more likely to not be so apathetic.”

Leek, however, said that it’s not so much apathy from college-age voters, but the absence of a comfortable forum in which to talk about politics that’s holding students back from actively engaging.

“I think what’s interesting about this is it’s not that young adults or college-age students don’t care,” Leek said. “It’s that we don’t ever create opportunities for people to talk about these issues. We act as if talking about politics is something that is taboo…That restriction on people being able to talk about politics, I think is what makes it difficult to learn what they really think about it, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Erika King, a GVSU political science professor, said that although the impact of the youth vote may not be quite as formidable in this election as it was for Obama in 2008, student participation still has the potential to make or break the candidates – especially in battle ground states.

“I think that if we look to 2008, students were an important part of Obama’s constituency,” King said. “Students alone did not cause him to win the election, but they were part of a coalition of different kinds of groups and he very much targeted college students and other young people, especially college students.”

In regards to student’s stake in the November election, King said to keep an eye on candidate’s positions on federally funded financial aid, access to higher education and issues surrounding healthcare and insurance policies.

“My best projection is, given what we know from public opinion polling about attitudes of college-age students, that they will still trend toward Obama – but I don’t think it’s going to be such a big gap as it was in 2008,” King said.

The final presidential debate will air at 9 p.m. ET, and cover issues surrounding foreign policy.

“As youth, we can influence each other, but we can also influence a wider square,” Bilski said. “I mean, the fact that we are going to a university means that we’re learning about what many, if not most Americans, don’t have the opportunity to. So, we have the time to sit down and think things through, and we could use that to go out and talk with people who aren’t a part of university. We can be the change that shifts the mindset.”
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