By: Giada Merced
On September 17th, we recognize the 239th anniversary of the United States Constitution’s signing. Schools across the United States celebrate this national holiday. Tri-C has been officially recognizing this day since 2018.
At Tri-C, the Democracy Fellows Program partners with the Fair Elections Center Campus Vote Project, a civic engagement service our students participate in. Since 2018, Tri-C has held a voter education event each fall semester across all campuses, which we’ve dubbed The Voting Experience.
During the last few weeks of September, all main Tri-C campuses participated in the “Voting Experience,” a nonpartisan event for students, by students. The experience talks you through all aspects of voting. For example, who is running, how to check the polls, and even how to vote at a booth. Westshore Campus held its Voting Experience on National Voter Registration Day, September 14th and 15th. On September 17th, Westshore had Student Government host Constitution Day.
All members of Westshore Student Government participated in Constitution Day: President Giada Merced, Vice President Michael Kerr, and Treasurer Gordon Rowa. When Student Government hosts an event, it must be as engaging as possible, especially if it is such an important occasion like Constitution Day.
To start the day, the Vice President and I set up scheduled tables and organized all the materials. There were American flags, pins, and event stickers as freebies for Tri-C students. A very intentional part of the event was handing out small U.S. Constitution booklets in English and Spanish to anyone interested. To raise awareness about voter registration, the forms were provided for people to complete and bring to the Student Life office for submission. Though the main event was the U.S. Trivia, it wouldn’t have happened without the help of the wonderful Westshore Student Life staff.
For many events, if not all, hosted on campus, Student Life is central, from planning to execution, and setup to takedown. As Student Government, one of our duties is to help staff and faculty with anything they may need from the campus community. A leadership quality that most people might not think is required in Student Government or any leadership position is the ability to host and coordinate events. Student Government advisor and Westshore Student Life director, Billy Benrnard is very passionate about this part of the student learning and growth experience. That’s what he said about this year’s Constitution Day:
“In 2005, the federal government enacted a law requiring all public institutions that receive federal funds to host an educational program on, or around, Constitution Day. We host an activity at Westshore with the intention of helping students learn about, or remember, the responsibilities we all have as U.S. citizens to the Constitution.”
During the event, people’s knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and the history surrounding it was questioned, and we had several students being genuinely surprised by some facts. Some were even shocked about Constitution Day itself!
Near the end of the event, about 20 students stopped by and engaged with us, according to our Treasurer, Gordon Rowa. The event ended with more than 30 Constitution handbooks distributed and a few Voter Registration forms collected. Turnout for the activities for Constitution Day met expectations, and Student Government, leading the event, was satisfied with the results.
