Political candidates are in full campaign mode, and those who are elected will have a significant effect on Dixie State College—whether students vote or not.
DSC’s Political Awareness Week runs Sept. 24-28 and serves as an opportunity to get to know the ins and outs of politics.
Brandon Price, DSC Student Association vice president of academics, and a senior communication and theater major from Brigham City, said Political Awareness Week is especially pertinent this year.
“The students neet to get involved just because this is a really important election year,” he said. “Sometimes students feel like they’re disenfranchised, but when we band together and vote, we can make a difference.”
Price said collectively DSC students make up a good population of voters, but it’s just a matter of getting the students involved in the voting process.
One of the biggest issues affecting college students this year is the rise in college loan interest rates and the decreased grace period in which students have to begin paying back their loans.
Student Body President Brody Mikesell, a senior integrated studies major from Henefer, said he and the rest of DSC’s student government have made efforts to combat the rising student loan interests.
“At a state (and national) level, we’re pushing to [change] Pell grants and federal loans,” he said in a Sept. 17 board of trustees meeting. “We actually wrote a letter to Washington (D.C.) letting them know we did not support the increase to the loan rate, and we got a very positive response back from that.”
This is a prime example of how being politically aware and active on a campus level can potentially have an effect on a state, or even federal, level. Political Awareness Week gives students that opportunity to get to know their senators and the student government process.
The week begins with an event on the Diagonal. Student senators will meet and greet students Sept. 24 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Students can ask questions about DSC’s student government on this day or through DSCSA’s social media outlets.
Students are then invited to attend a student senate meeting in the Gardner Center conference room C on Sept. 25 at 4 p.m. This will be a chance to see how the school’s senate process works.
The documentary “The Price of Admission – The College Debt Crisis” will be shown on Sept. 26 at noon in the Gardner Ballroom, and the Thurs “D” event will focus on Rock The Vote. It will be held Sept. 27 at 6:30 p.m. on the Encampment Mall.
Students’ questions regarding the senate, as well as discussions on the possible campus-wide tobacco ban, will be read and answered at the final event of the week, which will be held on the Hazy-Holland sidewalk on Sept. 28 from noon to 1 p.m.
“It’s really our future,” Price said about the election process. “It’s [the politicians’] decisions that make our future.”
