EDITORIAL- Registered to vote? Want a cookie?

Yesterday was the last day for eligible voters to register or make any modifications to their… Yesterday was the last day for eligible voters to register or make any modifications to their registration information in order to vote in the upcoming. (That’s it. It’s over. If you missed out, then you just missed out. There’s no use crying about it now. You can vote for a president in four years.) For those of us who remembered, hopefully it wasn’t all in vain. Now is the time for people to educate themselves on the issues and the candidates, and to vote. Especially with the recent push to get young voters registered and engaged, campaigns such as DeclareYourself.com have requested that college professors give students extra credit for registering to vote.

The New York Times reported last month that a professor at Drew University tried to make voting in the presidential election a requirement for her American literature class. The idea was shot down by faculty members and called totalitarian.

Of course, there are issues with having a requirement like that at Pitt. There are foreign students enrolled in classes here, as well as those few cute and cuddly 17-year-olds. Then there are those who have serious reasons for abstaining from voting. But there is nothing stopping a little extra credit.

As long as it’s relevant. All professors should encourage civic engagement, but the classroom podium shouldn’t become a pulpit from which our professors proclaim their holy doctrines: “Thou shall vote or suffer the consequence of a lower grade compared to thine classmates.” That is not the way to go.

The purpose of a university is to create well-rounded, educated and responsible members of society. Encouraging students to vote without showing favor to a particular candidate is not only acceptable, but a pretty darn good idea, provided it makes sense.

For example, in a political science course, it makes sense to propose extra credit for watching and analyzing debates, or finding an article about a candidate or the election and posing discussion questions for the class. There should always be creative ways to reward students who go above and beyond the call of studenthood and apply the coursework to their lives.

And there shouldn’t be added obstacles for those students who wish to vote on Nov. 2. Pitt’s faculty assembly unanimously passed a motion recommending that faculty members give students a workload break on Election Day. Now that’s a good idea gone great. No exams and a lighter load may sound like requests to avoid obligations, but in fact, they are only signs that the University does care about its students voting. Thank you, Pitt. We won’t let you down.

We’ll do our part, too. The vice-presidential debate between incumbent Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., will air on television tonight. If 100 million viewers tune in, there will be two crossword puzzles in The Pitt News tomorrow. It’s just our way of encouraging voter education. Don’t let us down.