With less than two weeks until the November elections, voters will have the opportunity to interact with local politicians Sunday night at a Candidates Forum in Von Canon C.
The forum--co-sponsored by the Student-Employee Relations Committee, Duke's NAACP chapter and the Community Service Center--will include Republican Tuan Nguyen and Democrat David Price in the race for North Carolina's 4th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Elizabeth Dole were both invited to participate, neither of the U.S. Senate hopefuls will be able to attend.
The forum will also feature six of the 10 county commissioner candidates: Democrats Joe Bowser, Philip Cousin, Becky Heron and Mary Jacobs, and Libertarians Hal Noyes and Michael Owen. Starting at 7 p.m., candidates will briefly present their platforms and answer a facilitator's questions before addressing questions from the audience.
Organizers said they hope the forum--which is open to the general public--will encourage political participation in students, employees and members of the broader Durham community.
"We wanted to give employees and the community an opportunity to learn about candidates, especially those that typically do not access political information in this form," wrote senior Brandilyn Dumas, Duke NAACP member and one of the forum organizers, in an e-mail.
Senior Andrea Hamilton, a member of SERC as well as the CSC programming committee, added that organizers hope the forum will also serve to bridge gaps between the Duke and Durham communities and between students and University employees.
"We hope that students and employees will get a chance to interact with each other outside of day-to-day contact," she said.
So far, organizers said the forum has met with positive responses from both students and employees. Although many students may be occupied with Parents' Weekend activities, Hamilton said she hoped attendance would meet the room's maximum capacity of 100 people, but she noted the venue would "work whether it's a small intimate environment or a large audience."
Junior Julie Flom said the forum sounded interesting, even though she is not registered to vote in North Carolina. "Since we're living here, it would be nice just to have some idea of what the issues are and to hear the candidates' responses to other people's questions," she said.
However, other students not registered in the state said they would not attend because the information would not be directly useful to them.
A number of employees said they wanted to attend the Candidates Forum but that their work schedules would not allow it. Others said they probably would not attend, citing reasons such as reluctance to spend a day off back at the workplace and a lack of interest in the represented political races.
Some employees said they were simply not interested in what the forum had to offer.
"I wouldn't go to the forum because most of the information I want to receive about them is on TV and in the debates," said Saundra Norwood, a Dining Services employee.
However, senior Donnel Baird, a forum organizer and a member of SERC, stressed that the interaction between candidates and forum attendees would be "much more important than listening to stump speeches."
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