Several students' voices will be heard by 100 million people around the world when they are featured on a political broadcast late next week.
Yesterday, while many headed to cast ballots, 2000 College graduate Paige Kollock filmed students on campus for a program focusing on American college students' interest in political issues.
The results will be broadcast worldwide by Voice of America, a broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government that concentrates on news and education. The objective is to explain to any "19-year-old kid sitting at home in Africa what their counterpart in America is thinking," Kollock said.
Although Kollock said a more typical depiction of views on college campuses could have been obtained from students at a school like Penn State University than from those at an academically rigorous Ivy League institution, Kollock decided to work at her alma mater because she received a good response from students upon initial contact.
Kollock, who remembers herself as having been politically apathetic as a student, said she was "impressed at how much people know and how much they care" about politics now.
After graduating, Kollock became much more interested in political issues. The Pennsylvania native did not vote yesterday, though, as she is still registered in New York from her days in graduate school.
Of the estimated eight students who were interviewed, "most were very enthusiastic and politically motivated," Kollock said. "Almost everyone had voted, or if they hadn't, it was because they couldn't."
College senior Dan De Rosa, political outreach chairman for the Penn Democrats, said that "Penn has an unparalleled political activism" after years of trying to "shatter the reputation of being politically apathetic." De Rosa was one of the students Kollock interviewed.
Kollock said she did not interview members of the College Republicans because she found it easier to contact the Penn Democrats and because Voice of America had already interviewed the national president of the College Republicans. In addition to members of the Penn Democrats, Kollock also interviewed a random sample of students from Locust Walk.
Wharton senior Jared Katseff, the treasurer for Penn Democrats, was one of those interviewed. Citing the recent riots in Argentina during the Summit of the Americas, Katseff said he thinks there are "a lot of misunderstandings [internationally] about what Americans think."
Katseff said Voice of America might make people "realize how much diversity there is on American politics so that they won't have the same opinion of this country."
The program will be aired sometime late next week internationally and will also be available on the Voice of America Web site.
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