Fall Term History Course Assesses Student Political Engagement on Campus

According to a recent survey, Exeter is preparing its students well for college and their careers, but it may be falling short in providing them with the basic information about government and politics needed to become effective participants in a democratic society.This past November, students in history instructor William Jordan’s 440 class, Politics and Public Policy, conducted an annual survey which attempted to measure the student body’s general level of political engagement and basic knowledge of the US government. Some of the results surprised students in the class and raised questions about the adequacy of Exeter’s preparation of its alumni to become informed citizens.Surveyors conducted face-to-face interviews of a representative sample of 84 students, which included equal numbers of male and female participants as well as a 1:5 ratio of day to boarding students. Questions addressed students’ knowledge of U.S. government policy and the political value of an Exeter education. They ranged from participants’ personal political views to Exeter’s role in preparing students for college and beyond. In an attempt to assess students’ political orientation, questions were also asked about parenting values that have been included since 1992 in the National Election Survey and have corresponded to political ideologies.While half of those surveyed agreed that Exeter was preparing them “very well” for college, and a third of respondents believe Exeter was preparing them “very well” for a career, fewer than one in five students gave Exeter the highest rating when asked whether Exeter was preparing them for “democratic citizenship.” Only one respondent out of the 84 thought Exeter was teaching them enough of what they need to know about government and politics.

“It’s more on the students rather than on the faculty to educate themselves.”

Jordan noted that while students generally believe they are being prepared to participate in the democratic process, they agree that they need more factual information on basic government and political processes.“The Harkness method—whether you talk about politics or not—teaches you how to interact with people, which is democracy.” Jordan said.“But, then again, we don’t have a civics curriculum or anything like that, and the history sequence everyone has to take doesn’t focus all that much on the government and how it works.”This conclusion was supported by results showing that slightly less than half of respondents could not name the total number of United States senators, the number of justices on the Supreme Court or the length of a United States senator’s term in office.With some changes to Exeter’s curriculum, however, students might be given more instruction in practical facts about their government.  Sean Taylor, senior and co-head of the Exeter Political Union, proposed that the upper level history courses provide this instruction. “The solution would be to put greater focus on civics in the 333 U.S. history course,” Taylor said. He noted that a year long course like this “is required for students all around the nation.”Another surprising result of the survey demonstrated the level of support at Exeter for certain presidential candidates. Overall, Senator Bernie Sanders led the presidential poll with the support of a third of respondents.Postgraduate Michael Eberle explained Sanders’s strong support at Exeter. “I think Exeter is generally pretty far on the left, which isn’t surprising at all because most, if not all, highly academic schools are liberal,” he noted. “I’d say the result of ‘Bernie winning’ supports that notion.”Jordan agreed. “Bernie is very popular with young people, and Exeter is a very liberal place,” he said. “I would expect the same results from a lot of other prep schools and college campuses.”The survey confirmed that Exeter’s student body is overwhelmingly liberal.  Half of the respondents identified themselves as liberal while only one-quarter consider themselves to be conservative. Surprisingly, the two leading presidential candidates for each party nationally—former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Donald Trump for the Republicans—tied for second place behind Sanders, with support from 12 percent each.Jordan agreed that it was surprising that Trump and Clinton tied, especially given the overwhelming self-identification of the Exeter student body as more liberal than conservative.However, Jordan suggested that Trump’s supporters would be more likely to identify in private surveys than in class discussions or in public.‘If you support Trump, you might be afraid that people are going to think you’re a racist or ignorant or that you don’t care about diverse people.”Others expressed their surprise at Trump’s strong showing among Exeter students. “The support Trump received surprises me,” Taylor said.However, noting that Trump is very strong among New Hampshire republicans, Taylor said that Trump is “insanely popular here, so I guess in that respect, New Hampshire can be a very conservative state.”In retrospect, Jordan agreed that the survey methodology was not perfect and that more attention could have been given to students’ responses on a class-by-class basis. “One of the things that the survey is faulty on is that we haven’t separated out the different classes,” he said. In this way, the survey couldn’t distinguish whether the upper classes were more educated about government and politics than younger students.The survey also asked students about how they consumed news.  The most common source of political information for Exeter students was social media with 71 percent, followed by word of mouth at 58 percent.  Only 48 percent cited newspapers as a source they used for news.Senior Holly MacAlpine, one of the History 440 students involved in designing and administering the survey, was not surprised with the results, given the general liberal leanings of the student body. “I don’t think that most students tend to care about current events.  A lot of people just tend to follow the general political trend and support the candidates they see most prominently in the media,” she said.But she didn’t see that as an excuse for not knowing who your senators are.“The fact that a lot of people objectively had no idea [about basic political information] is, honestly, somewhat concerning, considering this is one of the top schools in America.”In the end, MacAlpine said, students “have the responsibility to educate themselves. I think that Exeter should be encouraging that, certainly, but I would argue that it’s more on the students rather than on the faculty to educate themselves.”