MURFREESBORO,
Tenn. — MTSU’s 2018 Constitution Week is focusing on educating
students, faculty, staff and the community about their civic duty in this
election year: exercising their right to
vote.
The university’s annual observance of Constitution Day is set Monday, Sept. 17,
when students, faculty, staff and visitors mark the 231st anniversary of the
signing of the U.S. Constitution by reading the historic document at multiple
sites across MTSU throughout the day.
WMOT-FM Roots Radio 89.5
also will broadcast a day of special
programming celebrating the U.S. Constitution through contemporary song, hosted
by College of Media and Entertainment dean Ken Paulson and WMOT
students.
Voter registration tables will be set up on campus
throughout the week to help citizens prepare for the Nov. 6 federal and state midterm
elections. The American Association of
University Women will register voters by the Student Union on Monday,
followed by the League of Women Voters
on Wednesday, Sept. 19, and the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office
on Friday, Sept. 21.
Voter registration also will be available at the
James E. Walker Library on Tuesday,
Sept. 18.
Early voting runs Oct. 17 through Nov. 1 in
Tennessee.
“Revisiting the Constitution should be the wake-up
call every single one of us needs to be reminded that ‘We the People’ are our
nation’s deciders,” said Mary A. Evins,
an associate research professor in MTSU’s University
Honors College and coordinator for MTSU’s chapter of the American Democracy Project.
“Democracy is everyone’s personal responsibility. The government we get is the outcome of each’s citizen’s action — and inaction.”
The Constitution Week 2018 efforts are continuing
MTSU’s popular “True Blue Voter Initiative”
partnership with the Rutherford County
Election Commission. The new project, which launched this summer and will
continue at least through the November election, has already added hundreds of
new voters to the rolls by answering their voting questions and personalizing
their registration process during CUSTOMS sessions and other special campus
events.
New voters also can register during regular
business hours through Tuesday, Oct. 9, at the following MTSU
locations:
- American Democracy
Project headquarters, Room 221, Paul W. Martin Honors Building.
- Albert Gore
Research Center, Room 128, Todd Hall.
- Center for
Educational Media, Room 101S, McWherter Learning Resources Center.
- John Seigenthaler Chair
of Excellence in First Amendment Studies office, Room 238, Bragg Media and
Entertainment Building.
- James E. Walker
Library atrium.
MTSU also will present a free public screening of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, the
documentary examining the life and legacy of PBS children’s TV host Fred Rogers, on Thursday, Sept. 20, at 5 p.m. in Room 106 of the Honors Building.
This year’s Constitution Week itinerary continues
the university’s series of special speakers and events that have enlightened the
MTSU community since 2005. Guests have included:
- a group of
respected Tennessee judges and attorneys who discussed the constitutional
role of an independent judiciary.
- civil rights
activist and Nashville sit-in organizer and participant Diane Nash.
- the Revs. C.T. Vivian and James Lawson Jr.,
civil rights activists who spoke on the Voting Rights Act.
- longtime Iowa
congressman James
A. Leach, former chairman of the National Endowment
for the Humanities.
- National Public
Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina
Totenberg.
- a unique on-campus
session, via the Supreme
Court Advancing Legal Education for Students program,
of the Tennessee Supreme Court
to hear three appellate cases.
- a special U.S. naturalization ceremony for 300
people taking the oath of citizenship inside MTSU’s Murphy Center.
For more information
about the American Democracy Project at MTSU, email amerdem@mtsu.edu or visit http://www.mtsu.edu/amerdem.
For information about the True Blue Voter Initiative, including links to voter
eligibility details, visit http://mtsu.edu/TrueBlueVoter.
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