More than 125 students were registered this year during Tusculum College’s recent annual voter registration drive.
Tusculum’s Constitution Day program, coordinated by the Student Government Association under the leadership of Michael Fernando, a senior from Sri Lanka, majoring in accounting, general management and international business and economics, and Jeff Lokey, assistant professor of management, was critical in helping triple the number of registrants statewide.
“Everyone who votes has an impact on public policy and government leadership,” said Stephanie Turner, a senior journalism and professional writing major. “Voting is a learned behavior, and when people don’t vote, it undermines representative democracy. We can’t take democracy for granted; it needs our help to succeed.”
Tusculum College registered 127 during this year’s National Voter Registration Month.
Professor Lokey said the annual drive is critical, as he feels it is essential to the “future of our youth that we not only register to vote but that we actually use this power to get out and vote.”
“Everyone, especially the youth, need to be active registered voters,” he said, and this idea helped fuel efforts to pull off the amazing accomplishment of registering 127 Tusculum College students in this year’s drive.
Others on campus were involved as well, including Dean of Students David McMahan, who encouraged students who had registered to “visualize themselves voting so that they could continue to develop a habit in support of good citizenship.”
By Kayla Freeman, freshman business major from Charleston, S.C.
Students fill out forms to register to vote at a display earlier this year that was part of the voter registration drive.