Global Citizen Corps: Post by 'Brandon G'

Here's a great reflection on the conference, from the 'opportunities' section of the Global Citizen Corps forums:

'Student Impact Conference'

An excerpt:

"Keep your eyes peeled for next year's IMPACT Conference. Last month, I met
with the two chairs that coordinate the event and I spoke with them about things
that went well, and things that should change for next year. It sounds like they
are planning to make next year's event even better. I'm jealous that I can't
make it!"

Today's youth value human interaction?

I came to the conference with a research group I'm involved with at school. We're studying youth voter mobilization on college campuses, and held a workshop to that effect. All in all, I loved being at the conference: it was an awesome experience. For me, it's like study abroad--the kind of thing that everyone ought to experience at some point in college. The sheer energy of the conference blew me away--hundreds and hundreds of people in one place, all of them passionate about making the world a better place. I could rant for hours. But anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, I took the time to reflect on the conference (as I wrote up a few paragraphs that went into our thesis). Thinking back on that now, I'm curious about a few things. The key points that my group really took to heart from the forums and workshops and everything we attended about youth voting were the importance of peer-to-peer contact, accessibility, and sustainability. I can see, logically, the foundations of these arguments. But here's what confuses me: at the same time that we're talking about the importance of peer-to-peer contact to reach youth, we're talking about the same youth who've grown up probably having more social interactions through technology than in person: we've grown up with e-mail, instant messaging, and cell phones, and now through facebook, myspace, blogs, texting, even video games (I've never done it, but people apparently make friends playing Halo on Xbox: I saw it on Entourage!) and so on to that ever-increasing list. The question that this brings up, for me, is how to reconcile the two. I know plenty of people who are so dependent on technology that they prefer texting someone who is in the next room to talking to that person. So while I see how peer-to-peer contact should be important, I have to ask: is it really?

I'm not trying to discount the value of real human interaction. I just wonder. Maybe our research will be able to work that out!

Speaking of which, if you want to learn more about our research project (which you definitely should, it's awesome!) visit our website at www.votecp09.googlepages.com, or shoot us an email at votecp@umd.edu. We'd love to hear from you!

Re-Connecting with the Conference

During the conference, I attended one of the forums titled "After the Primaries, Before November: How You Can Help Sustain the Momentum of the 2008 Youth Vote." Talking with the other students, I definitely learned a lot about various mobilization tactics. It was interesting to hear about campuses from all over the country.

Students came from all over- west coast, east coast, city schools, rural schools, smaller private colleges, and large public universities. The diversity of students was great and I realized that the type of campus really makes a big difference regarding what tactics are used to increase youth turnout. For example, some schools are mostly composed of commuters and that would make it difficult to do dorm storms.

When we were split up into groups and told to brainstorm a mobilization tactic, we decided on a tactic that could be incorporated on any campus regardless of size, location, and so on. We brainstormed a plan that when students were registering for classes, there could also be a link connecting to a voter registration form. What was so amazing to me was that we recently had a bill here in Maryland regarding the same thing! The bill was called the Maryland Student Voting Rights Act of 2008, and it would have allowed students to register to vote when they registered for classes. Unfortunately, the bill was not passed, but it was so interesting that the idea had been exactly the same.

It's amazing to actually see that the great ideas that I heard from the conference can be implemented in a concrete way. Maybe this bill wasn't passed, but it gives me hope for future plans!

Looking Back

It has been a little over two months since the conference now and I have to say that it was a wonderful and very memorable experience. It had been my first time at a conference, and it was better than anything I had expected. The energy, the enthusiasm, and the passion for advocacy and social action swept me away.

I had been anticipating the conference for weeks prior, but as the weekend came closer, I have to admit that I was not the most thrilled to be there. I was bogged down with homework and tests that upcoming week, and I was missing out on plans with my friends. This all changed as soon as I walked in on Friday morning for registration, though. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the energy and the liveliness of the room excited me as well.

Overall, the conference was a great experience. I learned so much from listening to the speakers, meeting new people, and exchanging ideas with them. The passion that everyone had for social advocacy seemed to shine through their eyes and the passion and excitement was practically contagious.

Amongst all of the great activities and events at the conference, one of the highlights for me was the workshop that our team led. Our team is an undergraduate research team studying voter turnout on our campus at the University of Maryland, College Park. Our round-table style discussion at the workshop led to good conversations about what has been done on different campuses to mobilize students to register and to vote. After reading about different tactics in papers and articles, it was more personal and relatable when I could hear about it directly from the students and administrators from different schools. I definitely learned a lot about various events and tactics that were used, and I hope the others at the workshop and at the conference enjoyed it as much as I did.