The Rambler (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 99, No. 11, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 14, 2007 Page: 2 of 6
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2 November 14. 2007
News
The Rambler
Students polarized by politics, more active locally
Maya Srikrishnan
DAILY TEXAN/U- IVIRE
Today's generation of college students are becoming increasingly active in their local
communities. But as their volunteer hours are growing, so is their political indifference,
according to a report released Nov. 7 - just one day after Election Day.
In the report, researchers from the Center for Information and Research on Civic
Learning and Engagement found this generation, the Millennial Generation or Generation Y,
to be turned off or polarized by national politics, instead engaging more at the local level than
the generations before them.
"Youth have a greater tendency to shy away from politics
because they're just learning politics," said Mary Dixson,
associate director of the University of Texas College of
Communication's Annette Strauss Institute For Civic
Participation. "It's easier to ladle soup into a bowl for a home-
less person than to sit down and look at the economic policies
dealing with housing."
Because it takes longer to see the effects of politics, it's
easy for students to get discouraged, but they need to be able
to attack issues at the political level to change the roots of
problems, Dixson said.
'You have fewer and fewer young people seeing voting as
a civic obligation. It's not necessarily that this generation is
the first one to hate politics; it's just the first one to hate pol-
itics and not participate," she said.
Dixson said she thinks the number of 18- to 25-year-old
voters will increase as political issues become more relevant
to their lives.
Communication studies associate professor Sharon Jarvis
will present a paper next week at the National
Communication Association that addresses the same issue
that many young people prefer to volunteer than to vote.
Individuals are participating in nonprofit causes because
they view them as disconnected from the political system,
according to her paper.
"Volunteering can help a community or a cause "today,'
but volunteering without political action does little to solve a
problem for 'tomorrow,"' Jarvis wrote in an e-mail
Even if young people are volunteering in droves, the dete-
riorating voting rate will not guarantee a democracy, she said.
Politically active students at UT offered their own perspectives on why young people are
so civically apathetic.
"It makes sense for people to think the government is so far away because with the two-
party system, there aren't viable options for change," said journalism and government senior
Robert McDonald, a member of the International Socialist Organization. "The two parties
Photos courtesy of Google Images
More and more students are not participating in voting and
national politics.
have been getting closer and closer together because of their mutual interests in business and
giving Americans less alternatives when it comes to people-oriented issues."
Economics junior and University Democrats' spokesman Alexander Ferraro said today's
political climate turns people off and that being only one vote can make a student feel
insignificant in the larger political system.
"The fact is that the voter turnout in our generation is pretty poor," he said. "There is just
a general tendency among younger people to mistrust the political system, but eventually as
people get older they make their peace with it."
What happens in Washington, D C., will eventually affect students, Ferraro said, using
the war in Iraq as an example of an issue that cannot be solved by volunteering or giving
money to charities, but that needs to be solved by lawmakers,
"They have voting at the [Flawn Academic Center], but a lot
of kids who don't do it think it's not cool, per se, to be very
politically minded." said government sophomore Nicholas
Prelosky, vice chairman of the University chapter of the
Young Conservatives of Texas. ""Why would you want to be
political when you could be in a fraternity or play 'Guitar
Hero'?"
Politics can be boring, and students do not want to make the
time for it anymore because a lot of them do not understand
it, he said.
"A lot of people are fed up with the political system. Many
people on this campus voted for Chris Bell and Kinky
Friedman and campaigned for them, and when they didn't
win, it was all for nothing," Prelosky said. "It stands to reason
if you can volunteer, it won't make the difference passing a
law will make, but someone will have a home because of you,
and you can get a T-shirt to wear on your back. A lot of kids
like having that physical proof that they did something."
Robert Earle, FACE AIDS president and a government sen-
ior, said it will take him three to five more years to get a
degree that would allow him to do work in public policy, but
volunteering in an organization like FACE AIDS allows him
to help people right now.
"Our teachers are always telling us to take actions, and vol-
unteering allows us as students to do that right now," he said.
"Organizations like ourselves have been long circumventing
the governmental process because the issue is so urgent that
we need to reach out and do something now."
Biomedical engineering junior Leah Yngva also chose to
get involved with the issues important to her locally through the Campus Environmental
Center.
"I feel like I'm doing more in this organization than if I were to focus on politics," she
said. "I can actually see my results, but with politics, that relationship isn't so clear."
Print, from page 1
assigns an ISBN number and can then sell it anywhere from
on campus to on Amazon.com.
"The university has published academic and literary
journals before but never under a univer-
sity press," said Henderson.
In Days, DeLotto has compiled a col-
lection of poems, most of which have
appeared in anthologies or other publica-
tions. He said he often adopts the persona
or "skin" of another person or being in
order to write from new or different per-
spective.
In Days, he tried on a variety of
"skins" ranging from Col. Jim Bowie
moments before he is killed at the Alamo,
to a cancer patient, to a serial killer on
Route 35. DeLotto said the title comes
from a letter of John Keats to Richard
Woodhouse.
"What shocks the virtuous philoso-
pher delights the chameleon poet," said
Keats in the letter that inspired DeLotto.
"Keats believed some of the greatest
poetry is spoken not in the voice of the
poet, but lies in their power to get mside
other beings and characters separate from
their perspective," said DeLotto
Another faculty member, history professor Brenda
Taylor Matthews, contributed to the recently released Grace
& Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women. It is a history
DeLotto's book, Days of a Chameleon:
Collected Poems, is the first book pub-
lished by TWU Press.
anthology including cowgirls, artists, entertainers, nuns,
journalists, philanthropists, pioneers, politicians and women
of all ethnicities, published by Texas Christian University
Press
Her contribution is a chapter entitled "Ladies of Victory:
Fort Worth's Our Lady of Victory and
the Sisters of Saint Mary of Namur,"
which is also a part of a research proj-
ect Matthews started several years ago.
Matthews is one of 14 women who
contributed to the book, which was
edited by Katie Sherrod, an independ-
ent Fort Worth writer, producer and
commentator who was named Texas
Woman of the Year in 1989.
"It took a critical mass of women
who write about women," said
Matthews.
"The goal was not an encyclopedia,
but to gather as many women's stories
as possible out of the attics and into a
public place, to provide snapshots of
women's contributions that others may
one day enlarge upon," according to the
TCU Web site. "The result: a labor of
love by women for women."
All the contributors attended a book
signing at a local Barnes & Noble Nov. 10 and were sur-
prised to welcome a crowd of about 75 people
"I am very flattered to be part of this," said Matthews.
The ladies will gather once again to sign their book at the
Photo by Kevin Keathley /
Annual TCU Press Autograph Extravaganza from 4 p.m. to 6
p.m. Dec. 7 at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden Building. The
event is free and open to the public. Grace & Gumption is
available through Barnes & Noble and other major book-
stores.
A reading of Day of a Chameleons is scheduled for 7:30
p.m. Nov. 29 in the Louella Baker Martm Pavilion. DeLotto
will have hardcover ($30.99) and soft cover ($20.99) copies
of the book for sale at the reading. The Texas Wesleyan
University Press will provide submission guidelines at the
reading, which will be available afterwards on the Wesleyan
Web site.
Matthews and other contributors to Grace & Gumption will
sign books Dec. 7.
Haber, from page 1
because of Haber.
"Marian Haber had an incredible influence on my education and my profession. She was
the adviser for The Rambler when I was a student, and I learned more there than I ever could
in the classroom. I am confident that it was that background that helped me to enjoy some
early success in my career as an editor," she said.
"Almost 10 years later, as fate would have it, I now hold the same job she once did! We
are still good friends to this day, and I treasure that. She is a very dear person to me."
She leaves some fond memories behind, but Haber said she looks forward to her retire-
ment this winter. Her husband is retiring soon after her, and they plan on spending some of
their time traveling together ... and they're not wasting any tune.
"We have a cruise around South American planned for March," she said.
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Poling, Shawn R. The Rambler (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 99, No. 11, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 14, 2007, newspaper, November 14, 2007; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201248/m1/2/: accessed May 13, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Wesleyan University.