Programming: The First Presidential Debate

All community assistants at ASU are required to "program" for their residents. This means creating events that help students learn, grow, and have fun. Many CA's like to share their personal interests with students. For example, a girl on my staff hosted a crotchet program because she loves to crotchet and wanted to teach others.

For my first program I wanted to do something that I am interested in, but also something that students would get a lot out of. My residents are all freshman and therefore, freshly 18 and able to vote. 2012 is an election year so I wanted to be sure that my residents were knowledgeable about the issues and ready to vote in their first election. With all this in mind, I decided to organize a viewing party of the first Presidential debate on October 3rd.

Here is a picture of the set-up for the event:

Putting this event together was easy. There were a total of five steps I had to do:

1. Market the event
2. Reserve a viewing space in my community area
3. Get money for food/go shopping for food
4. Put all TV's in the area to a loud volume on the same channel
5. Pull up an ample amount of chairs to the TV's

The event was, in my opinion, very successful. I had about 50 students come to watch the debate.

In order to better market this event, I offered free food to those who attended. I further added to the "theme" of the event by advertising that I would be serving "Patriotic" snacks. As you can see in the picture below, this turned out to be a large selection of junk food:

 The kids who came to the event loved  it, however, and I was able to get rid of all of the food at the event.

I highly recommend events like this because they are easy to put together and help students stay informed about important issues. Students are much more likely to be in-tune with important issues like the elections when lots of people around them are doing it too.