OPINION: Ohio U’s Civic Engagement Forum is a step in the right direction

“Ohio University John Calhoun Baker University Center,” Photo courtesy of Ohio University.

Bryce Hoehn is a senior studying political science and an opinion columnist for The New Political.

Please note that these views and opinions do not reflect those of The New Political.

Last Thursday, the Ohio University Center for Campus and Community Engagement (CCCE) hosted its inaugural Civic Engagement Forum. The forum was broken up into three sessions, each an hour long, with speakers from the international student community, leaders of student political organizations and elected officials from the community. 

The elected officials in attendance included Athens Mayor Steve Patterson, Ohio State Rep. Jay Edwards, and Beth Clodfelter, the southeast Ohio regional representative for Sherrod Brown. Organizers of the event hoped the forum would encourage students to engage in local and campus politics, and they plan to host the event annually. 

Getting students engaged in local politics is incredibly important for the community. As Patterson mentioned at the event, students makeup 2/3 of the Athens population and could be the largest voting block in the county if they were better organized.

Despite the population’s large size, student participation in local elections has been abysmally low recently. Last year’s city council primary race had an astonishingly low turnout of only 9.5%. In fact, the two most heavily student-populated precincts in this ward (which collectively encompass East Green, Mill Street and Riverpark) contributed only a single vote in this election despite having 1,097 registered voters.

Clodfelter echoed Patterson’s sentiment and added that having an organized voting block would force elected officials to pay more attention to issues affecting students, such as student debt. Even Edwards agreed that student engagement is important and called for tearing down the bubble between the university and the community. Edwards noted that despite the university’s liberal reputation, he actually received a lower percentage of the vote in 2020 (when many students were not on campus due to COVID-19) than he had in previous years.

Patterson also highlighted the power of student engagement by referencing a ballot initiative promoted by students in the early 2000s. According to Patterson, the City Council had passed an ordinance banning outdoor couches, and the students responded by successfully writing and passing a ballot initiative overturning the ban.

Last year, I wrote extensively on the unique challenges facing student voters in the city, concluding that the best way to overcome these hurdles is for the university to do more to engage student voters on local issues and elections. This event and the Student Senate local candidate forums in the fall have been productive steps towards that goal.

The Student Senate local candidate forums last fall featured candidates for Athens City Council. They were asked policy questions by moderators and those in the audience, whereas the Civic Engagement Forum last week was more focused on getting to know the local representatives. This approach is fine for now, as no major contested local elections are approaching, but in the future, I hope to see more issue-oriented events from the university.

This will require both cooperation from local officials and interest from the student body. In the case of the first Student Senate forum, the Democratic candidates did not attend and instead had a separate forum for only their candidates. Avoiding confrontation is not going to get students engaged. Instead, politicians should be openly presenting their views to the student body so that students can get an honest look at where the candidates differ.

These events will also require more interest from the student body. Having attended all three events, I can say that attendance was relatively low. Perhaps more could be done to advertise, but there will not be an incentive for these events to continue or for local politicians to attend if they cannot rely on student presence. Eventually, I hope these events get big enough to attract otherwise apolitical students, but it is up to politically motivated students to attend and promote these events among their peers.

Overall, I am happy to see more effort from the university and student organizations to engage students with local politics. An organized student vote would be huge for electing progressive candidates and passing pro-student legislation. However, to succeed, these efforts will require more cooperation from the local politicians and increased student attendance.