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Printer-Friendly ModeStudents recruit for new RSO
March 31, 2008 —
Plans are brewing among SVSU students to add a chapter of the College Democrats to the University's roster of special-interest registered student organizations.
The group, while currently unofficial in terms of RSO status, is in the midst of a recruiting process to gather enough members to begin the organization.
Founder and physical education sophomore Chris Breznan described the purpose of a College Democrats chapter at SVSU.
"Our mission is to enhance political knowledge to our peers and community members," he said.
Currently, the existing political RSO on campus in the leftist sector is the Organization for Progressive Politics (OPP). In its fourth year of operation as an RSO, five to 10 official members compose the OPP, according to the group's president, political science sophomore Becky Bailey.
As both groups tend to have liberal viewpoints, both Breznan and Baily commented on the difference between the organizations.
"OPP is typically a liberal-minded group, so we may very well share members and ideas with the College Democrats," Baily said. "However, we are not associated with a party."
"College Democrats is going to be the umbrella, and OPP is underneath of the umbrella," Breznan said. "College Democrats is going to be the umbrella to Democratic organizations that present themselves in the future, but OPP is going to focus more on petitions and rallies."
"We are more issue-oriented than the College Democrats would be," Bailey said. "We prefer to get involved in proactive activities, such as protests and getting out the youth vote, whereas the College Democrats will be more party-minded and will do activities based on party goals.
"We hope to collaborate with the College Democrats as much as possible," Bailey added. "However, we hope the student body understands that we are different in ideals, and we do support co-members of both OPP and the College Democrats."
As of now, neither organization supports a specific presidential candidate.
"OPP does not collectively support a candidate," Baily said. "We do not support one particular party in our group; however, our members mostly support liberal progressives, and there is always the Hillary vs. Obama debate in our group."
Breznan did not reveal intentions for the College Democrats to support a candidate during the primaries.
"We will support the democratic nominee," he said.
"I would hope that we can contribute a voice in the University and community and help to create a more informed voting demographic," Business Administrator for the College Democrats Mitch Horner said.
When it comes to the importance of younger generations heading to the polls, Bailey described a similar goal on OPP's agenda.
"Our main goal is to educate students on the progressive mindset, which is the idea of supporting issues and candidates that have ideas to move forward and create a better society than the one we are living in now," she said. "One way that we hope to achieve this is to push for voters' registration for young people because we feel that, in most cases, the youth vote is a very progressive one."
Breznan encourages those interested in learning more about the College Democrats to join their Facebook group.