Middbriefs

Author: Jaime Fuller, Stephanie Joyce

DEMS MOBILIZE TO AID WITH VOTER REGISTRATION

With only 48 days until November 4th, College Democrats kicked off the campaign for presidential nominee Barack Obama on campus at a well-attended event in Dana Auditorium Sept. 17. Co-presidents Will Bellaimey '10.5 and George Altshuler '10.5 outlined the three-step plan for getting out the vote over the coming weeks: Swing Midd, Volunteer HQ and New Hampshire.

After identifying the 'Big 8'-key swing states in the upcoming election- Bellaimey asked attendees to list people they know from Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania and use that list as a starting point for campaigning and voter registration.

Campaign headquarters are being established every Monday and Wednesday night from 8-10 p.m. in the Hillcrest Orchard to organize on-campus canvassing and to conduct phone banking to swing state voters. Altshuler emphasized that this is not a long-term commitment and that even volunteering for 30 minutes would be an important contribution.

For those who would prefer to get into the thick of the campaign trail, there are two trips to New Hampshire being organized, the first over fall break and the second during Election Week. During these trips, students will assist Obama's New Hampshire campaign by canvassing door-to-door. Although exchange student Lily Hughes '09 can't vote in the election she is enthusiastic about canvassing in New Hampshire because, she said, "it gives me the chance to participate in and influence what I feel is an incredibly important election for both America and the rest of the world."

STEELE: STEREOTYPES POSE A VERY REAL THREAT

Stanford University Professor of Psychology Claude Steele spoke this Monday at Mead Chapel about his research in the "stereotype threat." Steele's lecture explored how stereotyping can negatively influence students' academic performance, and what can be done to prevent this from happening in the future.

Steele stressed from the beginning the adverse effects psychology can have on one's cognitive abilities.

"It's been interesting to tell people that psychological experience has an effect on academic experience," said Steele. "We think of ourselves as autonomous, but the subtle effect on environment, these contextual factors, they are affecting us as well."

One of the examples he used repeatedly in his lecture was his experiments regarding the stereotype that women are worse at quantitative problems than men. When women are reminded of their gender before an exam, they underperform, but when they are told that women score on par with men on a particular exam they score either better or the same as their male counterparts.

At the end of the lecture, Steele confessed that he didn't have a promising prescription on how to counter stereotype threat.

"I've got some bad news," Steele said. "Identity threat is intrinsic to diverse settings, unless something is done to reduce it."

He said that the good news was that "we don't need to completely restructure society to make this work."

"The strength of American society is diversity and we need to take it as an integral part of our success," he said.

Steele visited the campus as a Middlebury College Visiting Twilight Scholar, meaning that he also attended classes and met with faculty and students outside of the classroom.