College junior Andrew Silverstein was elected last week as the president of Penn Democrats. He sat down with The Daily Pennsylvanian to share his plans for Penn Democrats and Penn’s political community for the next year.
Daily Pennsylvanian: How did you become involved with Penn Democrats?
Andrew Silverstein: I got involved when I first came to Penn and I’ve stayed involved since. This previous semester I served Penn Democrats as the events director, orchestrating programming and events throughout this year — doing Issue Week, the Obama Student Summit and various other initiatives.
DP: Tell us about some of these past events.
AS: We really held three types of events. The first were social events trying to bring together a community of politically involved students. We did that through social initiatives, particularly with the College Republicans and bipartisan stuff. The second type is legislative and educational types of events … We hosted Frances Kissling, the Bipartisan State of the Union Watch Party, Issue Week and the Cookies and Brownies event. The third type is political — we hosted Nutter, Rendell and the Obama Student Summit.
DP: How will you work with other political groups on campus?
AS: We’ve had a lot of Quizzo events [and] social events with the College Republicans. That’s something I’m really looking forward to continuing this coming year. We want students really learning both sides of the issue, [knowing] both and then [fighting] for what they stand for. We will be co-hosting different initiatives, like voter registration — nonpartisan things to get people civically engaged. I’m excited to work with them.
DP: What are your goals for Penn Democrats this year?
AS: My role and the role I want Penn Democrats to play at Penn is to be a leader in campus politics. I want to build an infrastructure of students who are really passionate about politics, get them politically engaged [and] have them involved in the civic process … We’re going to be doing canvassing, phone banking and dorm-storming. The two primary things we’ll be focusing on is — first, voter registration, in which we team up with Penn Leads the Vote as well as College Republicans. The second is Get Out the Vote, to make sure the students are going to the polls next November 6. Hopefully in that process we get voters convinced that they want to elect Obama and Casey, and Patrick Murphy for attorney general and Chaka Fattah.
DP: What will Penn’s role be in the Obama campaign?
AS: [We were involved in] the Obama Student Youth Summit, which was a couple of weeks ago. We had 400 students there and over 6,000 students nationwide watching the live feed online … This is something we want to continue — doing big initiatives that spur enthusiasm for the Obama campaign and Democratic policies. The goal is for Penn to lead the national student movement for the Obama campaign and [show] that we are the exemplar school when it comes to getting out the vote, voter registration and student enthusiasm for politics.
DP: How politically active do you think the student population is here at Penn?
AS: Students recognize that the issues in our nation really affect students particularly. Look at student loans, health care and education inequalities. These are things that really matter to students … I think that’s the reason why the Penn community will really be instrumental come 2012.
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