Political clubs around campus work to organize and inform with the help of their leaders
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In a world where politics and its biggest debates are common, the different political clubs on campus aim to increase bipartisanship, increase participation in politics, and inform students on the tools they have.
There are many student political organizations, the biggest and most popular of them are, unsurprisingly, the clubs centered around the three most prevalent political parties: the College Republicans, College Democrats, and College Independents.
The presidents of these student organizations are connected through a passion for their personal political views as well as increasing the civic awareness of those around them, often leading different election drives to encourage students to vote. While their ideologies differ, their beliefs and understanding of their own world help to shape their leadership in their organization.
College Republicans President aims to increase events and organizing
Morgan Watt (senior-animal science) is the current president of the College Republicans and has worked to increase the events that the organization takes part in as well as promote a positive environment for conservatives on campus. “It’s a place where conservatives can talk openly about their political opinions and meet other like-minded people,” she said.
The College Republicans have been an organization at Penn State since 1940 and currently has 110 members with an average attendance of about 60 to 70 people.
Watt, of Cambria County, Pennsylvania, was interested in politics growing up, watching the news with her grandparents and her dad. Her interest at an early age interested her into taking some government classes when she was in high school.
“I started thinking a lot and watching conservative podcasts like Ben Shapiro,” she said. “I had a passion for it and it’s continued to grow.”
She knew she wanted to join a political organization when she came to campus as a freshman and found the College Republicans through the involvement fair.
As president, Watt has organized many events around campus like a 9/11 event where they put an American flag on Old Main lawn for every American that was killed in the terrorist attacks along with a separate memorial service, sponsored 15 seats for service members at Penn State football games, a community service project with Dear Hero where they supplied marine bases with eight boxes of non-perishable food items and other necessities to actively deployed service members, participated in the men’s walk against violence, and partnered with gender equity to organize the clothesline project.
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The organization works with local politicians in Centre County and State College by door-knocking as well as helping with different senatorial campaigns in the state ahead of the midterm elections being held in November.
Watt hopes to see further involvement in other events on campus. Something which the future president hopes to continue. “She planned events to make sure members got the most out of our club,” said Matthew Soska (junior-political science). “My plan is to make sure we are as active in the midterm elections as possible and to build our membership.”
A typical meeting for the organization starts with the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance and then is followed by discussing a topic in two separate groups. They sometimes play political Jeopardy and holiday themed Kahoot games.
College Republicans has overlap with another conservative organization on campus, Turning Point USA, and will in turn promote events of theirs that follow with their mission statement. Turning Point USA is a national nonprofit that supports spreading conservative values in schools and has a Penn State affiliate. They also have had students from Students for Life, an anti-abortion group on campus, come into a meeting.
Originally, Watt planned on going to grad school to continue her animal science trajectory, but has instead chosen to make her passion for politics as part of her career by joining Penn Ag as the Poultry Council Director with future hopes of lobbying for animal agriculture as well join her local Young Republicans and continue to support College Republicans as an alumna.
College Independents serve as a bridge between the republicans and democrats
Ethan Wright (senior-statistical modeling data science) is the president of the College Independents. Unlike the College Republicans and Democrats the club itself doesn’t have specific candidates they support and its base is all over the political spectrum.
According to Wright, an organization at a university that is catered towards independents is very unusual, as he said that in an attempt to try and reach out to other organizations for potential meet-ups or discussions he found out there are only a couple other clubs in the country that are similar to the College Independents.
“It probably just started as a group of people who wanted to make a non-partisan discussion group,” he said. “The idea just works so well that even people who don’t go into college looking for an independents club find us.”
Wright is from Wexford, Pennsylvania and got into politics like many of his peers did. He said that around the time of the 2016 election there was an increased interest in politics at his school that there had not been before, that was due to the peculiarity of the election. While the rest of his classmates didn’t take too much interest in policy and politics any further, he decided to get more well-versed.
One thing that is unique to the College Independents is its membership makeup. For the most part, the majority of its active members are actually people who originally were in College Democrats or Republicans. In fact, Wright originally came into Penn State and joined the College Democrats at the involvement fair, before getting pulled over by the College Independents, where he eventually found himself.
“I was still a little involved with College Democrats through the years,” he said. “But in College Independents I just loved the discussions we had in week one as a freshman all the way to the last meeting as a senior.”
College Independents is more group-focused than they are focused on events and organizing for candidates. There are around 20 active members in the club and, due to its size, are rather close-knit and hang out often even in their own free time. Before the pandemic, the group would go on field trips, which is something that they are hoping to bring back next year with the falling of cases.
Due to Wright’s job, he will be straying away from involvement in politics to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. He does intend to get involved with Habitat for Humanity in his local area as housing is something he picked up during his time at Penn State that he wishes to continue advocating for.
Democrats look to the future with their new president
Sam Ajah (junior-civil engineering) is the new president of the College Democrats. The organization held their elections a few weeks ago, and Ajah has been the leader since then.
The College Democrats has been around for a while and has around 30–50 active members with about 100 members total, according to Ajah.
Like Wright, the 2016 election is what spurred Ajah to become interested in politics, but didn’t get very involved until after he came to Penn State, joining the club his freshman year.
“Our former president Kelsey Denny helped me to register to vote and then recruited me to join the club,” he said. “Ever since then, I’ve been heavily involved in the club.”
Since Ajah is new to his role, he hasn’t had the opportunity to do much yet. He plans to start organizing and reaching out within the local community and work with other organizations to make change on campus and in the area.
“We recently just started our mutual aid program which is designed to help out fellow students in the area,” he said. “I really hope we can make more programs and work with other organizations to really make lives better for people within the greater State College area.”
Typically, meetings start off with housekeeping and occasionally having a guest speaker in local politics for about 10 minutes. They’ve had larger scale politicians like Brian Sims, a candidate for lieutenant governor, speak for entire meetings as well. They then inform members about upcoming events and a discussion of a current event topic.
The outgoing board members have hope for the future under Ajah. Olivia Madonna (senior-elementary education) hopes that her board’s legacy will help with further organizing as well as creating a positive environment for both new and current members.
“Under Sam’s presidency, I hope that we can get more students registered to vote on campus and elect Democrats during the midterm election in November,” she said. “I hope we can continue to be a figure of change on campus and in the Penn State community.”
