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Voting A Class Requirement For Some At Drew
timrichardson writes "A Quaker literature professor at Drew University tried to make voting at the US Presidential elections a requirement for her English Lit class. NY Times has the story (free registration required)."
...if it was for a poli sci class, especially one focusing on America. I can't make any sense out of it being a requirement for English lit.
Rob
Honestly, how can you prove that you voted? Unless she makes everybody present one of those "I voted today" stickers they hand out at the voting centers.
An interesting aside to this article, Fox reporters harrassed students trying to register their peers to vote in Arizona..
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Note that I didn't RTFA. Maybe he makes a liar out of me by saying he will not, under any circumstances, excuse anyone. I really wish Slashdot wouldn't run NYT stories.
Some students may be in-eligible to vote -- too young, non-US citizens, felons, ... etc.
For other students, it might be quite a morass to figure out if they can vote away from their home presincts. Different state laws.
Of course, silliness must [statictically] happen.
Mod ctr2sprt up!
This is the exact point i got from RTFA.
The students are not forced to vote, but the prof is encouraging voting by letting the students know that it will somehow affect their grade.
TFA is short and at the end u get the idea that the prof's ulterior motive is to start a dialog on campus, not FORCE students to vote.
I'd be more interested in the voter turnout for the campus vs last year's turnout...
------ no thanks... I've quit
As a requirement for a sociology course on death and grieving we were required to go to a mortuary and bring back price lists for coffins, burials, etc. For a theater course, we had to see 3 productions external to the campus. For a japanese course, we had to go to Yahoan, a japanese supermarket. A civics course required the participation in a city government town-hall meeting. A course on aging required interviewing the elderly and nursing home attendants.
External requirements for coursework are not at all uncommon, and are generally more useful than in-classroom coursework. If you could choose between two engineers, one of which studied dilligintly in the classroom but had no experience and one of which was required to get an internship in the field, who would you pick?
Requiring students to enter a voting booth is definitely fair, and should pass muster with basically anyone in acadamia. While it is questionable whether or not you can require your students to vote, you can definitely require them to be physically present anywhere they are legally allowed to be. I do wish the requirement were more stringent... I.E. go or have your grade reduced by point five. But the concept of making your students participate in government activities is sound, and I wish more professors (and high-school teachers) would lean this direction.
After all, where are kids going to learn the mechanical, tedious process of signing up to vote, finding their polling station, etc? From 15 second rock-the-vote ads?
The ______ Agenda
She said she'd grade generously and on the honor system. She requires them to register, go to the polling place, and enter the booth. She does not tell them who to vote for, she does not require them to vote. It's sort of like a field trip where they can participate if they'd like, but if they just watch and learn something about the process, that's fine, too.
Her goal is to provoke discussion. So far, no students have dropped the course.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Quakers vote? Since when?
Direct away from face when opening.
To me, this is the weirdest part of the article:
Professor Skaggs said the penalty for failing to enter the voting booth, which would be done on the honor system, would probably be "a failure to be generous" on her part when it comes time to issue grades and "an inclination to round fractions down."
So, if you don't complete this external activity, she'll have a slight bias against you for the rest of the year? The problem is that it's so subjective you have really no way of knowing how fair she's being in this.
Just weird.
Love the Third Amendment?
If this were a political science class, she might have a case for this being a necessary requirement (although I would still feel strongly that students should be allowed to substitute an explanation for their decision NOT to vote for voting.) As it is, it presents a massive chilling effect on the religious freedom of withdrawal.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
.. an electoral authority of some kind?
How is it possible that such a person thinks that it is OK to force people to do something which should be a free individual decission?
Why are there so many idiots on this thread justifying sombeody requiring this?
No wonder democracy is being undermined so badly, most people, even literature teachers, do not get it.
What an amazing and outrageous state of affairs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...voting at the US Presidential elections
Ok, this rant is already in my sig, but I will expand a bit here since it's on topic. There are no "US Presidential elections", where you show up at the polls, vote for the president, and go home.
I don't know if this professor is presenting it this way to the students or not, but most U.S. citizens seem to see it this way. It's shamefully common for people to say "Eh, why vote? I'm in a swing state!"
There are plenty of more items on every ballot -- local and state representatives, and propositions that your local/state government wants your feedback on before they change the laws.
You are NOT just going to vote for the POTUS -- so if you don't show just because you're not in a swing state, all you're doing is saying "I don't care" to all of the local and state decisions that are going to be made until the next election... and trust me, you WILL care about some of them.
Back to the specific topic -- some people might have their specific reasons for NOT voting (it's a pretty dumb way to protest against the system, but there could be religious reasons, etc.), so I'd argue instead for an assignment where the student does everything to vote (including ensuring they are registered, and getting a mail-in ballot if necessary), and documents what they did -- then has the personal option to actually cast a vote or not.
Same idea (and a great assignment, I think), without the iffy aspects.
Where's the freedom in forced voting? As Americans, is it not the right of the people not only to decide *whom* they're going to vote for, but *whether* they will vote at all?
Granted, this is a private school, and if they are funded strictly by private funds, then they can legitimately make this a requirement (students can go to other universities if they disagree with the requirement). But if the university receives government funding in any way - for research, etc. - then they are not wholly-privately-funded, they are funded in part by the public as well, and thus should be subject to the same 1st Amendment rights that government entities are.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
I don't know the usa laws about this, but in any free nation you could get smacked with charges of some kind for pulling off this kinda stunt
Actually, in some countries (like Australia) voting is compulsory and you pay a fine if you don't vote.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
First, like many posters, I don't like anybody with power -- a boss, a teacher, a union official, a wife or husband or parent -- abusing that power to make other people vote.
Also, from a pedagogical point of view, how is the act of entering a voting booth related to the study of literature? Somebody can enter the booth whether they've read 0 pages or 1000 pages of campaign literature.
Here's a tougher and more relevant requirement: get a comment moderated "4" or "5" on slashdot, not counting "funny". Even harder: do it as an anonymous coward.
Of course that would be open to cheating. And to be sure, some topics are easy to get mod points on, just put up "RIAA is teh sux0r" in an article on music piracy and that's +4 insightful. But generally, to get mod points, a writer has to have a good thesis, and has to present it in a way that acknowledges the complexity of the subject and also the counter-arguments from the other side.