NEWS
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Student Council holds voter registration drive
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Legislative Affairs Committee leads effort, has trouble tracking student sign-up, voting location history, Co-Chair Cohen says Hanan Yazid and Samantha Josey-Borden
Elections online registration system, which are typically used to track voter registration.
Student Council's Legislative Affairs Committee has spearheaded a voter registration drive in recent weeks to garner attention about next month’s midterm elections. The committee aims to make voter registration as easy and simple as possible for students, who typically have low turnout in midterm elections, and partnered with Virginia21, the Department of Housing and Residence Life and the Center for Politics for the project. Tracking who can register and who already has will be a challenge for the Committee, said second-year Law student Zach Cohen, one of the committee’s cochairs. Out-of-state students may not have declared Virginia residency, and in-state students often register with their hometown rather than in Charlottesville. On a logistical level, the committee does not have access to services such as TurboVote and the State Board of
“Our goal is on coverage, making sure that students that want to register have easy ways to go about that,” Cohen said. “Because voting is habitual, if we can have students vote once — be it in the commonwealth or out-of-state, in person or absentee — the chance of them continuing to vote [across] their lifetime is dramatically increased.” As part of the initiative, Council sent an email to the first-year class about the initiative. “We were ecstatic to see that hundreds of first year students had clicked a link to register to vote on-Grounds within a day of our sending an email to the first-year class,” Cohen said. Cohen said students can now use their University IDs to satisfy the voter-ID requirements. In an article for Politics Prof. Larry Sabato’s weekly newspaper, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Center for Politics spokesperson Geoffrey Skelley said young voters make up
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only 14 percent of the midterm electorate, compared to one-fifth of the electorate during presidential elections. “Every midterm election, … elderly voters are more likely to cast votes in both presidential and midterm years than their younger counterparts,” Skelley said. “But the youth vote could matter in a contest like the one in the 10th Congressional District in Northern Virginia, which is really the only truly competitive federal
Porter Dickie | The Cavalier Daily
Senior associate dean for education to replace Dunlap, handle curriculum changes Senior Writer
University officials announced Dr. Randolph J. Canterbury accepted his appointment to Interim Medical School Dean earlier this week. His term will begin Dec. 1, 2014. Canterbury, the senior associate dean for education at the Medical School, will replace Medical School Dean Nancy Dunlap, who is stepping down after 18-months in the position. Dunlap said in an email that she came to the Medical School during a period of turnover and was allotted an 18-month period to ensure everything went smoothly. “Randy is a thoughtful individual who understands the issues that are being addressed,” Dunlap said. “I have no doubt that the transition to Randy's leadership will be smooth. The other senior associate deans are very talented and will help Randy if issues arise. We have completed a strategic planning process and are implementing our
initiatives. Teams are in place to help carry out our plans.” Dr. Richard Shannon, the executive vice president for Health Affairs, said in an email that Canterbury has been close advisor to the dean for more than a decade, and is taking on the role out of a deep sense of duty to the University. Shannon said the interim position was not a “lame duck position” and would require skilled leadership. “The unfinished work of the SOM [Medical School] strategic plan and important administrative restructuring will begin under Randy’s leadership,” Shannon said. Canterbury said he has been meeting with Dunlap for the past 18 months as part of the Medical School’s management team. While the strategic plan represents an ongoing project which started nine months ago under Dunlap’s watch, implementation will continue under Canterbury. “We have an institutional plan that was developed by members of the Medical School
that we are a constituency from which they need support.” During a visit to the University in September, Sen. Mark Warner said students need to vote during elections to see key changes in issues which interest them, such as student debt. “One of the only things that could affect policies [created in Washington] or transform them is to increase voter-turnout among young individuals,” Warner said during the speech.
Student Council, left, is holding an ongoing voter registration drive. The Legislative Affiars Committee is leading the initiative.
Canterbury named interim Medical dean Henry Pflager
race in Virginia this cycle.” Cohen said if youth start to vote in large numbers during the midterm elections and not just during presidential elections, young voters will increasingly become recognized as an important part of the electorate. “Students collectively can make a substantial difference, particularly in the state and local elections that will occur next year,” Cohen said. “By voting, especially in large numbers, students send our elected officials the message
community with a strategy to move forward,” Canterbury said. “I think my job will be — I won’t say simple, but it’ll [be] pretty clear, and that is to implement that plan over the next 7-8 months.” The plan includes education fellowships for faculty to improve teaching and a potential dual degree with the Education School, which Canterbury said they plan to start next summer. According to the announcement Shannon made earlier this week, the Medical School is continuing an ongoing national search process to find a new permanent dean to succeed Canterbury. Dr. Karen Johnston and Prof. Gary Owens co-chair the search advisory committee. Shannon said he hopes the committee and the administration will find a new dean by July 2015. When the dean position is filled, Canterbury will return to his current position as the Medical School's senior associate dean for education.
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