Congressional candidate Maggie Goodlander met with Colby-Sawyer students Friday, Oct. 25, to discuss the Nov. 5 election. While the event was open to all interested students and faculty, the primary audience was students enrolled in the First-Year Experience (FYE) course.

FYE, a requirement for all first-year students at Colby-Sawyer, challenges students to think deeply about global issues and to question how they could be solved. The students attending the Goodlander event were in sections of FYE that focused on themes related to democracy, leadership, education, visions for the future, social justice and community.

“The idea of FYE is that every student comes into Colby-Sawyer and is confronted with a wicked problem,” said School of Business & Social Sciences Professor Eric Boyer, who teaches the FYE section Perspectives on Democracy.

“Over the course of this semester, as you’re learning how to be a college student, as you’re learning those core essential academic skills for success, as you’re connecting to the campus, connecting to each other, you’re also coming into a problem from various directions. You’re taking it apart, you’re putting it back together. The hope that we as faculty have is that you’ll start thinking about solutions.”

Boyer was contacted by the Goodlander campaign to host an event at Colby-Sawyer for her to meet and talk with students.

“I thought, ‘This is perfect,’ because this is exactly the kind of thing we encourage in FYE,” Boyer said. “This is a wonderful moment for [the students] to really put these ideas and these practices on the ground. You know, test them out. Flex the muscles of [their] FYE experience up to this point.”

During the talk, students asked questions about education costs, climate change, mental health and addiction, women’s rights and the process of democracy. Annaliese Rowell, a student in Boyer’s Perspectives on Democracy class, asked Goodlander how she would help students feel safer in schools. The topic is important to Rowell, who conducted a research project in high school that explored safety in New Hampshire schools. She found that students felt unsafe due to a lack of mental health resources and the occurrence of sexual and dating violence and online bullying.

“I was very pleased with her answer,” Rowell said. “She explained the current legislation going through the offices working to reduce gun violence in schools as well as her plan to increase the access to mental health professionals [that] students have in their schools.”

Rowell’s high school stressed the importance of voting, but there was not a lot of guidance about candidate or policy research.

“Through this event, I was able to experience firsthand the issues Maggie Goodlander cares about,” Rowell said. “I was able to hear her stance on issues I care a lot about, such as women’s rights, climate change, public education and more.”

This interactive experience is what the Colby-Sawyer FYE program is all about.

Theodora Quint, another student in the Perspectives of Democracy class, reflected on how the conversation paralleled their class discussions.

“One key area of discussion in our FYE is citizen involvement in different governments. We have looked at ancient Athens and their democracy, which is based on the involvement of everyday citizens in an assembly,” Quint said. “Maggie Goodlander wants us to be informed citizens and make our voices heard in the upcoming election. She said that it is college students that can make the difference in an election.”

Goodlander’s visit to Colby-Sawyer was one stop on her long campaign to visit all the college campuses across New Hampshire.

“We went to White Mountains Community College. We were at New England College in Henniker … I’ve been at Dartmouth, I’ve been at UNH,” Goodlander said. “We’re meeting students wherever we possibly can.”

Goodlander said she wants to meet as many students and young voters to help stress the importance that every student’s vote and voice matters.

“The beauty of our democracy is we all have skin in the game and [a say] in who represents us,” Goodlander said. “I really believe that students are the future of the state and our country. [Their] voices matter so much, not just in this election, but well beyond.”