CAS CONNECT 2014

19 The following week, on Oct. 7, Lankford and Johnson participated in a debate for Coburn’s Senate seat. All debates were free and open to the public and took place in the theater in OSU’s Student Union, with Lenoir serving as moderator. OStateTV, the university’s video and web-based network, recorded the last two debates, which were streamed live on OETA and C-SPAN. The involvement of these organizations really gave his students the opportunity to learn some of the intricacies in organizing a political and media event. The debate between candidates for state superintendent of public schools will be held Oct. 28 at the OSU-Tulsa campus. RISING PROFILE In another high-profile event, Gov. Mary Fallin set time aside during a campus visit last spring to speak to a media and politics class about her own experience with the media as a politician. Lucas Sheets, an agricultural busi- ness senior with a minor in political science, was instrumental in making Fallin’s visit happen. Lenoir, knowing that Sheets was the president of the OSU College Republicans, encouraged Sheets to reach out to Fallin about speaking to the class while she was on campus. Sheets explains how events like Fallin’s visit raise awareness of OSU’s political science department. “Without a doubt, if I hadn’t been taking this class, College Republicans wouldn’t have been involved with Mary Fallin,” Sheets says. “To get students there to ask questions and see the actual people … they think it’s really cool to see and talk to people that have political experience like the governor. They were pretty impressed.” Lenoir still participates in broad- cast journalism through his appearances on Oklahoma Forum , a public affairs program on OETA featuring topics related to the Oklahoma state legislature. He often arranges for his classes to attend live tapings when he is a guest on the program, so they can get a behind the scenes view of how a political television segment is put together. Lenoir has even managed to have his students involved in some of his research. Last spring, he recruited a cross-section of OSU students to participate in his Perception Analyzer experiment. For the experiment, students watched President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address and the subsequent GOP rebuttal. They recorded their reactions in real time by using a knob. Turning the knob to the left indicated they did not agree with the current message and turn- ing the knob to the right showed they did agree. Based on the students’ demo- graphics such as gender, age, etc., Lenoir tracked in aggregate numbers which issues resonated and which did not. “If you’re going to study voter mobi- lization and the challenges that are involved with getting people who tradi- tionally wouldn’t vote to get out and vote, what a better place to be than a college campus?” Lenoir says. “What I try to do is get the students involved. I don’t tell them how to vote, but I do give them extra credit to register to vote. If they vote in this election, they’re proba- bly going to vote again in the future. I’m trying to create good citizens.” Whatever Lenoir’s secret to success is, it seems to be spreading. By giving his students a reason and opportunity to get excited about politics, they begin to become hungry for more events like the debate series, the OETA trips and speak- ing events featuring political figures. With the debate series, OSU will continue the path to raise its visibil- ity on the state and national levels with help from its students, faculty and support from the university. The nation will soon be in the hands of young voters, and Oklahoma State University is doing its part to shape America’s brightest future. Jamie Hadwin PHOTO / BRIAN PETROTTA