Civic Participation

  Credit card companies are now a major presence on college campuses, targeting students to sign up for credit cards and leaving them with growing amounts of debt. Credit companies are targeting students through mailings, phone calls and on-campus pitches, offering them free gifts for filling out an application. Some companies even affiliate themselves with school organizations to appear more legitimate to students. According to a study conducted by U.S. Public Interest Research Group, college students receive an average of five mailings and four phone calls each month, urging

  A student group at Rutgers University, Rutgers Against the War, held a protest to support Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq.  He is being court-marshaled as a result of this decision. 2/7/07 Read More from Rutgers

  Two graduate students from Dartmouth College have created OpenVote, a new Facebook application that lets students poll each other on campus and across the country. OpenVote will allow students to poll their peers on any issue from national politics to campus culture. In addition to creating polls users can post photos, videos, comments, and browse other polls posted on the site. The only rule: no haters allowed. Active users, and those who post the most popular polls can win iTunes gift certificates and matching contributions to a charity of their choice. OpenVote was launched last y

  The deadlines for voter registration are upon us. The earliest deadlines have come and gone, and many states are now counting down the days before registration ends. On campus, efforts have grown exponentially as student groups push to register students in record numbers, knowing that this election could well be determined by the youth vote. Several schools are, for the first time, changing their campaigning policies to allow political groups to campaign in re

  Voice Your Vote, an entirely student-run organization at the University of Michigan is starting early in its effort to get the student vote out for the upcoming presidential election. The group has been working with the university administration in an effort to expand their presence on campus and spread their message to a greater number of students. Voice Your Vote hopes to increase the numbers of voter registration drop boxes on campus, to send out mailing lists to students, and to gain access to more buildings on campus.

  Thanks in part to hundreds of phone calls from Smith students, the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) has passed through the Massachusetts Senate. The GWSA will put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and plans to reduce emissions 20% by the year 2020, and 80% by 2050. The bill will now travel to the House of Representatives for a vote. Smith students plan to lobby for the bill in the House from April 11th to 14th, dates that coincide with the Massachusetts Power Shift conference, a youth summit centered on solving global warming. The Smith students hope to build additional support an

  A Daily Collegian article from Penn State University looks at student activism on campus, past and present. From demonstrations to sit-ins, there have been ebbs and flows to the student activism at Penn State. Several interviewees point to the activist potential of the campus, and a few recent incidents that point to greater student investment. 3/21/07  Read More from Penn State University

  This past Tuesday, approximately 1,000 students, faculty and staff from Stony Brook University, and nearly 50 students from New York University made the journey to Albany, NY to lobby for higher education. Students spent the day lobbying for financial aid programs such as the Tuition Assistance Program which former Governor Eliot Spitzer’s proposed 2008-2009 budget cut by $77.7 million. Watch a video of students from