Class Creates Political Action Committee

May 15, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: Students at Calvin created a political action committee whose agenda
cuts across party lines.

Full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/class-pac.htm

Students in a Calvin political science class turned in an ambitious piece of
homework this semester: They created a political action committee (PAC).

The PAC, dubbed Young Americans for Generational Equality or Y-AGE, was an
assignment for Political Science 317, "Parties and Elections."

"Usually, the class is held in the fall of an election year, and the class is
structured for some practical experience like volunteering on a campaign. You
can't do that it in the spring," says Doug Koopman, the Calvin political
science professor who teaches the class.

The name of the PAC in part references the "Y" generation, Koopman says, whose
technological savvy gives makes them valuable muscle in the political world.

"One motivation for this assignment was to show my students the power they had
to influence the system. What do students have that politicians don't?" he
asks. "They have creativity, and they have experience with the new media.
YouTube and MySpace and Facebook and all this social networking is second
nature to our students."

Indeed, the Y-AGE Web site, www.yagepac.org, contains the listserv and video
features common to modern internet destinations.

The class was responsible for creating an agenda for Y-AGE. The students
found agreement on three issues that became the PAC initiatives: the
environment, entitlements and education. The goal of the PAC is endorse and
support candidates on the federal level who work effectively on those three
issues.

Koopman required the class to do all the legwork required to create the PAC,
including researching the relevant laws and registering with the federal
elections commission.

Contact Koopman at 616-526-6706 or dkoopman@calvin.edu

-end-
Received on Tue May 15 08:48:39 2007