Bob Graham Center lecture- civic participation of the youth

[VILLANUEVA,JOSHUA A]

The Bob Graham Center is pleased that Prof. Russell Dalton will be on
campus early next week and will be doing a presentation on Monday at
5:00 pm in Pugh Hall 120. The title of the talk is "Youth
Participation in America: The Good News Is, the Bad News is Wrong."
Those at the lecture are invited to a reception afterward to meet
Prof. Dalton.

A growing chorus of political analysts claim that an uncivil,
disengaged and alienated public is placing American democracy at risk--
and that the young are most responsible for this trend. Dalton argues
that the good news is . . . the bad news is wrong. Using a series of
national public opinion surveys, he gives a full accounting of how
Americans are changing their views of good citizenship—and
participation. Turnout in elections has decreased, but Americans are
more engaged in a wider variety of political activities, and the young
are at the forefront of these new patterns of democratic citizenship

Dalton, a professor of political science at the University of
California, Irvine, focuses his research on the role of citizens in
the political process, and how democracies can better address public
preferences and the democratic ideal. He was founding director of the
Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine. The author or editor
of more than twenty books, Dalton has been a Fulbright Research
Fellowship, Scholar-in-Residence at the Barbra Streisand Center,
German Marshall Fund Research Fellowship, the POSCO Fellowship at the
East West Center, and the UCI Emeriti Award for Faculty Mentorship.
Kim Martin from the Graham Center is using his book "The Good citizan:
How a Younger Generation is Reshaping American Politics" as a text in
her honors course on Citizenship this semester.

Dalton’s visit is part of a new effort at bringing some of the
nation’s best and brightest scholars to the Bob Graham Center – an
initiative aimed at increasing civic awareness among a new generation
of student leaders. Civic health is a pressing issue in Florida.
The National Conference on Citizenship has ranked the state 34th
nationally in average voter turnout, 48th in public meeting attendance
and 49th in volunteering - making it one of the weakest civic cultures
in the nation.