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Hi, I’m Matt Streb! I’m Adam Seagrave. Streb: We want to talk to you about a new,
exciting initiative the department has this year where we take two courses and revolve
it around one theme, and that theme is Democracy. You know, when you ask people do we want democracy
in government, most people would say absolutely. But when you start to scratch below the surface
a little bit, there’s quick disagreement about what makes a model democracy. So, who
should be able to vote, how often should we be able to vote, what type of representation
should we have and those types of things often have a lot of debate about that. So, what
we have is two courses here, both centered around the theme of democracy and students
will enroll in both courses and Dr. Seagrave will teach the Democratic Theory course and
he’ll talk a little bit about what that is. Seagrave: My course is going to focus
on the history of the idea of democracy, starting from the ancient Greeks, going through the
American founding, and all the way up to the current day. Looking at why is it we think
democracy is a good thing, what makes it good, is it required by justice, how can the democratic
ideal be achieved in political practice. Streb: Then what I’ll do in my American Electoral
Democracy course is build on a lot of the things we talk about in that Democratic Theory
course. But, we’ll move from theory to practice. What does our modern electoral system look
like in the United States, again, should we have an electoral college, what should our
campaign finance laws look like, how should we redistrict and how does the fact that we
redistrict the way that we do and we end up with gerrymandered districts, how does that
affect representation? Those types of questions. The courses are really integrated. There are
times that I’ll be in Dr. Seagrave’s class and he’ll be in mine. It’s the same students
taking both courses. There are two separate courses, though. You get two separate grades,
6 total credits. If you’re interested in signing up for the courses, it’s a little
different from our normal courses, you want to e-mail Pam Kombrink or see her in Zulauf
Hall 415 and she’ll give you a permit number to enroll in those courses. So, Dr. Seagrave
and I look forward to having you in class and if you have any questions, please let
us know.