Political Science Debate - Western Carolina Univserity, NC

1. Why did I want to organize this event?

I feel like it is important for students to hear about the issues from other students. The event was also a great follow up after the DM Faculty Panel Discussion last week. The debate also allowed students to address questions to the panel which generated good discussion of the issues.

2. What steps did I take to organizing it?

First I created a list of questions, approximately 25 questions total, to address campaign finance reform, the presidential election in 2008, and water conservation issues affecting North Carolina. Then I contacted the three parties on campus, the College Democrats, College Greens, and College Republicans to set a date and distribute the questions. The third item on my to-do-list was to send out promotions for the event through campus email, Facebook, university radio station, university TV station, and political science Listserve for majors. Before the event, I had to create an agenda for the welcome, announcements, and format of debate to keep the event structured. On the night of the event, I found two DM volunteers to keep track of time and hold the microphone to receive questions from the students.

3. What were some of the challenges I faced?

For me, I gave each group the opportunity to choose 5 of the questions from the list I had created and email me the questions they would like to start open with a 2 minute statement and the other groups would be given a 30 second rebuttal. The College Greens did not have 5 questions to give to me at the debate.

4. What accounted for the success of the campaign?

Of course with any campaign prior proper planning prevents poor performance but I must say the political science professors are very supportive of Democracy Matters activities on campus and they encourage their students to attend.

5. What lessons did I learn in organizing this campaign?

For student coordinators it is important that they are listed as the primary contact, because faculty and students sometimes have questions that they would like addressed before the event and people from the community may want to attend your event. It is very important to centralize the information from one source.

Coley Phillips
Campus Coordinator
Western Carolina University