fall 2008 - Northwestern College

AROUND THE GREEN
To Learn More
Get ready for the election by
visiting these websites:
• Project Vote Smart
(www.votesmart.org)
• Federal Voting Assistance
Program (www.fvap.gov)
• League of Women Voters
(www.lwv.org)
• The U.S. Congress Votes
Database (http://projects.
washingtonpost.com/congress/)
Of Course
Getting Out the Vote
Class
Electoral Politics Field Experience
Instructor
Dr. Jeff VanDerWerff
Associate Professor of Political Science
Stuffing
S
envelopes, canvassing neighborhoods, calling
voters. It’s part of every election—and of an eight-week
political science course offered every election year.
Involvement in a political campaign is the foundational
requirement of Electoral Politics Field Experience. Dr. Jeff
VanDerWerff, who teaches the class, believes such experience is the
antidote to both hardened cynicism and naïve idealism.
“Ultimately, I’d like students to be more realistic in their sense
of how they can make a difference,” he says. “It’s better to get
inoculated now with a healthy dose of reality. That will give them
better staying power for the long haul.”
He also wants his students to think about what their faith has to
say about public life. Is one’s faith just a personal matter? Does it
only involve being ethical, or should being a Christian impact how
one conducts a campaign?
And if it does, is it still possible to win?
Students explore those questions throughout the course. They’re
exposed to partisanship through their work on a campaign. They
get an insider’s look at what it’s like to run for Congress in “The
Political Education of Maggie lauterer,” part of the critically
acclaimed PBS series Vote for Me: Politics in America. And they’re
challenged to consider a different kind of leadership by author
Henri Nouwen—one based on Jesus’ example of leader as servant.
Texts and Assignments
• The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of
Uncertainty, by Thomas Patterson
• In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, by
Henri Nouwen
In addition to reading Patterson’s and Nouwen’s books, students
volunteer a minimum of 25 hours for a political campaign. (The
students enrolled in the course are working for Barack Obama, Iowa
State Senate candidate Randy Feenstra, and U.S. Congressman
Steve King.) They also write a paper that summarizes their
campaign experience, discusses the electoral process, and reflects
on the relevance of the texts—and this year, organized a debate
between the Campus Democrats and the College Republicans.
On Board
The latest person to join
Northwestern’s Board of Trustees
is Wayne Van Heuvelen ’74.
President of Horizon Consulting
and Investment Services in
Urbandale, Iowa, since 1995, he
previously served as a bank vice
president.
Van Heuvelen was named
Urbandale’s 2006 Citizen of the
Year for his many volunteer efforts
in city, school and youth athletic
activities. He is a member of
Meredith Drive Reformed Church
in Des Moines and the treasurer of
the RCA’s Classis of Central Iowa.
He and his wife, Priscilla, are
the parents of two children: Matt
’07 and Melissa Carrington ’09.
Wayne Van Heuvelen
Alumni Search
Northwestern is searching for a new
director of alumni relations. Rachel Van Den
Broek ’02 left the post this summer to move
to the Des Moines area, citing a desire to be
closer to family. She is an enrollment counselor
for William Penn University’s College
for Working Adults.
6
FAll 2008