In an effort to increase political activeness on campus, three Ball State University students have organized a letter-writing campaign event for Saturday.
Student organizer Betsy Mills said the event, which will be at 1 p.m. in the Art Museum, will focus on five issues: student rights, diversity, poverty, the environment and human rights.
The event's time was bumped until later than originally scheduled because of Barack Obama's visit, she said.
Mills said she hopes Obama's visit will excite students about politics and social issues so they are motivated to attend the letter-writing campaign.
Student organizer Jennifer Shea said the event will feature speeches from Sen. Sue Errington and political activist Dave Menzer from Citizens' Action Coalition.
Representative Mike Pence was scheduled to appear at the event, Mills said, but he had to back out because of the schedule change.
Students will break into groups based on which issue is the most interesting to them, Mills said.
The groups will have discussions about their chosen topics, she said, and they will then write letters based on the information from the discussions. The letters will then be sent to local, state and federal politicians, she said.
"We want students to be politically active, and we want them to know that their opinions and voices matter," Mills said.
Shea said she, Mills and student organizer Amber Michel are hoping to mail at least 1,000 letters.
Mills said the campaign was the result of work done by the club Coalition of Student Advocates, which the three student organizers formed as part of a senior thesis project.
She said the group got the idea for the letter-writing campaign after Michel did an internship at the Indiana State House. She saw politicians read many letters from the public and base their policy votes on those letters, Mills said.
She said she hopes at least 100 students attend the event, and the first 100 to register online will receive free lunch. Student Government Association is sponsoring the event and paying for the food, Mills said.
Shea said in order for students to receive the free lunch, they must preregister online. She said she wants to encourage students who are not registered to attend so that social activism can increase on campus.
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