Alison D. Howard

Policy-Making Rhetoric and Youth Issues in the 2004 Presidential Campaign

Campaigns make strategic decisions about appealing to various electoral groups. In 2004, both presidential campaigns did choose to appeal to those younger than 30 with their policy-making rhetoric. The authors find, however, that Bush and Kerry approached this demographic differently. Bush did not single out young adults to the extent Kerry did. Instead, Bush chose to treat young voters more as a part of the general electorate than a distinct group, appealing to their self-interest. Kerry was more attentive, directly targeting young citizens by focusing on issues of higher education and especially seeking to appeal to service-oriented young adults.

Teaching Better, Teaching Together: A Coordinated Student Exit Poll Across the States

Student exit polling has demonstrated value in the classroom (Berry and Robinson 2012; Evans and Lagergren 2007; Lelieveldt and Rossen 2009), but faculty typically operate these polls in isolation. When faculty collaborate, however, students gain additional benefits from the experience. Collaboration provides a geographically diverse “student community” that allows students to engage in experiential learning beyond the confines of their immediate classrooms. The authors have created assignments and an instructors manual on running student exit polls in undergraduate courses. Three institutions used these assignments during the Fall 2012 semester. By using structured assignments, these instructors created an opportunity to participate collaboratively with others in survey design and data analysis. Student assessment data showed that students explored their own political communities and honed skills across learning domains. Most importantly, students applied relevant political science concepts to the electoral process, exercised critical thinking, practiced oral and written communication, and grappled with project management. This type of collaboration provides political perspective and community engagement within political science for both faculty and students.