Although Marley Groskind's ultimate goal is to get a job in advertising or public relations, she has spent the entire semester researching bills that are before the Michigan House.
The advertising senior is enrolled in Arts & Letters 331: Writing in the Public Interest, a class that requires students to create online questionnaires aimed at ascertaining how their peers feel about the political issues facing them.
"A lot of laws that would potentially be passed will affect college students," Groskind said. "If you can actually explain to them what the issues are, you can stimulate interest."
Because the class was offered for the first time this semester, it only has issued about 12 polls. They range in topic from bills that would stiffen penalties for child abuse to health care coverage for contraception.
Polls are posted on civicscommission.com, the Michigan House Civics Commission's Web site. The commission is a bipartisan organization that seeks to make young people more involved in the legislative process.
"It literally takes five minutes to vote," Groskind said.
In addition to merely asking questions, the students also provide background information on the bills in an attempt to present the pros and cons of each issue.
Although the polling ultimately is designed to inform students and make their opinions heard, initial response to the questionnaires has been relatively sparse.
"Obviously, the critical public policy concern here is how invested Michigan college students are in public policy," said Professor David Cooper, who teaches the class. "The situation, as of now, is that students are just checked out."
Cooper said he remains hopeful that the project will attract some significant student involvement.
"This is both a platform for engagement for civic issues as well as a vehicle for shaping public policy," he said. "The jury is still out on whether it will be effective."
But State Rep. Andy Meisner, D-Ferndale, said although eliciting public involvement in the legislative process can be difficult, any feedback is beneficial.
"It's a huge challenge, but I think it's helping," he said. "I like to get input from as many sources as possible."
Meisner added that legislators such as himself partially are responsible for the lack of student involvement in political issues.
"I really see this as sort of a failing on the part of current elected leaders and the government for not making themselves relevant to people," he said.
But in the end, even though the experience of urging her fellow students to become involved hasn't spurred Groskind to change her major, it has ensured that she will remain politically minded for years to come.
"It has definitely increased my political stance, and I'm sure I'll be much more involved in terms of continuing voting and keeping up on political issues," she said. "It's been an incredibly rewarding experience."
