As Election Day approaches, Illinois State University is taking the initiative to educate students and viewers about politics’ crucial role in our lives through Election Night Live. The hosts are Illinois State University’s Extending Empathy Project and American Democracy Project (ADP) with the School of Communication.
Hosted by Dr. Steve Hunt, director of the School of Communication, Election Night Live: An Extended Empathy Project Event will give people the opportunity to come together and openly discuss election night and the events that build up to it. There will be guest speakers and people from the Empathy Project attending.
The event will take place November 8 from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Social Media Analytics Command Center (SMACC lab) in the School of Communication, and the event will be broadcast through the School of Communication’s YouTube page.
During Election Night Live, viewers will be able to stream the event and comment and ask questions that Hunt and others answer. “Having people tune into these important conversations about issues that impact us is important,” said Hunt.
This event will be the first time the school co-hosts a live session about an election. It is, however, similar to other projects that the school has hosted with the Extending Empathy Project.
“Like the Extending Empathy Project, Election Night Live is a way for the University to focus on important issues in society and create the question of what we can do as communicators to bring these important issues into our democracy,” said Hunt.
Creating Election Night Live is a great way to not only discuss the important topics with staff and students, but now there is an option for viewers to give their own input. The participants in this event will discuss election returns, major themes and issues, and implications for our democracy going forward. In addition, participants will incorporate data gathered from Illinois State’s SMACC lab.
The purpose of the Extending Empathy initiative is to provide a series of interdisciplinary instructional colloquia for faculty across the country who want to learn the science and practice of extending empathy in order to encourage others to do the same, across disciplines, in the classroom, and in daily life in general. Ultimately, this initiative will extend into classrooms across the country, preparing students to be meaningfully engaged citizens in democracy.
It is important for students to stay involved in politics. “Political involvement is critical, because everything you do as a professional is going to be impacted in the future of our country. Communication plays a huge part in this democracy,” said Hunt.
For more information about this event, please contact those listed above. For more information about Illinois State’s American Democracy Project, please contact Dr. Katy Strzepek: kastrze@IllinoisState.edu, or visit Illinois State’s Center for Civic Engagement website at CivicEngagement.IllinoisState.edu.
