Photo by: Bryce Evans and Zach Blom
With all the excitement of last week’s presidential rallies on campus, many students have started to talk about how to get involved with their favorite candidate’s campaign.
At the events, both Obama and Clinton spoke of the importance of the caucus. Colorado’s caucus will be held tonight, and party members will not be allowed to participate if they arrive after 7 p.m. Colorado is one of the Western states participating in Super Tuesday, when the fate of both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates may be decided.
Another thing I discovered after talking to several students on campus was that there are professors who are giving their midterms during a class period that is at the same time as Colorado’s caucus. No student should have to choose between a course’s grade and being a part of their government’s voting process. Our voices should be able to be heard, and yet students find themselves choosing between missing a test that could be 50 percent of their grade and going to caucus. What is even more ridiculous is that our own student government cannot attend Colorado’s caucus because the AUSA will not be holding a regularly scheduled meeting, and will instead have its quarterly dinner meeting with none other than our own Chancellor Coombe (https://iris.cair.du.edu/ausasenate/).
If our school would like to support the idea that learning does not stop at the classroom doors, then DU should not continue to put up walls that hinder participation. Of all the Tuesdays in winter quarter, the one chosen to be devoted to a dinner with Chancellor Coombe had to fall on the night of the caucus. On AUSA Senate’s Web page, it states, “If you have any concerns that you would like AUSA to bring up to the Chancellor, please contact your respective Senator.” Well, my concern is that maybe it should be more important for students to have the opportunity to be a part of the United State’s voting process rather than to go eat Sodexho while having awkward conversations with someone who shouldn’t need to listen to the student body to know not to do things like this. It is clear that the chancellor has no interest in putting the students before himself when he plans events like this. Even if this is an instance of being uninformed, a school’s chancellor should make allowances to change dates when needed.
People are constantly criticizing our age group for being apathetic when it comes to voting, yet they choose to ignore the fact that we may have pressures outside of our control directly linked to being a student that are holding us back.
