• 1,900 WMU Students Registered in Fall 2014 Initiative
• Faculty Needed to Get Out the Vote
• Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Schauer (D) to Visit WMU October 21

As you know, the WMU-AAUP is a sponsor of the 2014 WMU student voter registration project. While the deadline for registration has passed, the project is moving now into the get-out-the-vote stage with the hope of maximizing student participation in the November 4 election.

Faculty can help with the GOTV effort by volunteering to work on phone banks beginning on October 27 and throughout the week leading up to election day (Tuesday, November 4). This GOTV project is, like the voter registration project, a nonpartisan effort to try to encourage as many of our students as possible to develop voting habits while they are in college in the hope that they will continue to exercise their rights to participate actively in the democratic process throughout their lives.

If you’d like to volunteer for GOTV phone banking, please contact Nora Gimpel, the fantastic WMU student who is heading up the GOTV effort. (Many of you had the opportunity to meet Nora at the chapter meeting last Friday.) For her contact information, please see the WMU-AAUP email to the faculty dated Monday, October 20.

On a related note, although this is not part of the registration and GOTV project, the Democratic candidate for governor, Mark Schauer, will be visiting WMU on Tuesday, October 21, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the Sangren Mall (in front of Sangren Hall). Admission is free and no tickets are required.

Given that the governor appoints our board and has tremendous influence on the state’s contribution to the WMU budget, Schauer’s visit is an exciting opportunity for WMU faculty, students, and staff, regardless of party affiliation, to ask questions and share our perspectives with the man who might be our next governor. The event is sponsored by Students for a Sustainable Earth and the WMU College Democrats, and Western alum and state senate candidate Sean McCann will also be in attendance. Please be there if you can and encourage your students to attend as well.

Finally, many thanks to all of you who helped to get students registered to vote during the recent initiative. With your help, volunteers visited over 100 classes and registered a total of 1,900 WMU students, a wonderful accomplishment that is the product of a lot of hard work. Speaking of hard work, big thanks are due to our own Dr. Allen Webb, Professor of English, who helped to lead the registration effort. (Thank you, Allen!)

All that is left for us to do now is get our students to the polls on November 4!