DEMOCRACY AT CSU
University seeks to permanently embed principles in course work and activities
Sept. 23, 2024
With the approach of the November election, democracy is top of mind at Colorado State University, where a Thematic Year of Democracy and Civic Engagement brought special events, speakers, and courses to campus last academic year.
Now, CSU President Amy Parsons seeks to make democracy and civic engagement “a permanent priority,” she said on an episode of her new podcast, called The Next 150 with President Parsons. (The title references the university’s founding more than 150 years ago.)
“We need to inspire more students to exercise those muscles of civic engagement and democracy, so they’re strong when they graduate,” Parsons said. “We’re going to need all of these students engaged if we’re going to make progress.”
During a podcast conversation with leaders of two primary campus resources – the Straayer Center for Public Service Leadership and the Center for Public Deliberation – Parsons noted that many students new to CSU will vote for the first time in the 2024 election.
“I’m excited about it as a political science geek because I think it’s such an opportunity to have conversations around democracy, especially with first-time voters,” said Parsons, who graduated from CSU with a degree in political science before earning a law degree. “How can we capture that excitement and attention on campus this fall to really get students engaged in a new and fresh way in democracy?”
To help answer that question, a large group of faculty, staff, and student leaders has joined as the CSU Civic Engagement Collective to plan and coordinate special programming on campus.
A key effort of its members is a get-out-the-vote campaign, a hallmark of presidential elections at CSU. A ballroom in the Lory Student Center hosts a busy voting center, which is operated by the Office of the Larimer County Clerk. The campus also has a drop-off box for mail-in ballots.
Students demonstrate the principles of democracy as they discuss issues in the chambers of student government. Photo: Barnfly Productions.
More than 76 percent of eligible CSU students voted in the 2020 election, and 54 percent voted in 2018, a midterm election, exceeding the national average by a full 15 percentage points, according to data from Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy and Higher Education.
This year, CSU’s nonpartisan plan, compiled by the Office of Student Leadership, Involvement, & Community Engagement, sets a new campus goal: a voting rate among registered student voters of 80 percent or higher. This goal was set as part of the university’s participation in the national ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, which is also promoted by the Colorado Secretary of State.
Related to that, the Straayer Center for Public Service Leadership recently hosted a Civics and Voting 101 event to provide students with helpful information.
“Voting is part of active participation in our democratic process, and promoting democratic principles is foundational to the mission of CSU and all universities. It’s something we take to heart,” said Mike Ellis, associate vice president for student affairs and executive director of the Lory Student Center.
The student center has another prominent role during election cycles: Its Plaza is a popular public forum on campus, a traditional spot for public speech and assembly. By contrast, classrooms, residence halls, and academic and administration buildings are defined by the university’s Free Speech and Peaceful Assembly policy as nonpublic areas, normally not intended to be open to the public for expressive activities or gatherings.
Lory Student Center staff and many others on campus work to uphold the First Amendment and its guarantees of freedom of expression. They often offer one-on-one education and support to students who question the Plaza’s role as a public forum, where even offensive and harmful speech is often protected.
A central goal at CSU is promoting civil discourse, said Kyle Henley, vice president for marketing and communications. He is working closely with Emmy Award-winning producer John Barnhardt of Barnfly Productions to create a documentary film called The Democracy Project, which will highlight CSU efforts related to democracy and civic engagement during 2024. It is set for release next year.
A theme of the movie is expressed by Martín Carcasson, a communication studies professor and director of the CSU Center for Public Deliberation. The center trains students to work as facilitators supporting collaborative problem-solving during projects with local government, school districts, and nonprofits.
In a trailer for The Democracy Project, Carcasson lays out a question that has fueled his work in recent years.
“One of the concerns I have is whether the dysfunction and polarization at the national level will bleed down to the local level or whether some of these great, innovative things that are happening at the local level to bring people together will filter up,” he says. “Humans are always getting divided into ‘us versus them,’ which brings out the worst in human nature. But a local community can tap into the power of ‘us’ in a much more positive way.”
In The Next 150 with President Parsons, Carcasson says: “If we’re engaging people as collaborative problem-solvers, I think that’s the heart of democracy that we need to bring forth in our students.”
Photo at top: Gov. Jared Polis welcomes members of the Associated Students of Colorado State University as they visit the Colorado Capitol to learn about the workings of state government. Photo: Barnfly Productions.
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