#UniteIowa on Immigration Brings Academics into Action
BVU students, faculty, and staff are making final preparations for the historic #UniteIowa Immigration Forum.
A flurry of movement and waves of sound spread through Anderson Auditorium in the Harold Walter Siebens Forum – footsteps hustle to set up the stage and focus lights, last-minute instructions are given to ushers and guides, sound checks are made on multiple microphones, headsets buzz as video camera angles are adjusted – all just a small measure of the hard work that has been put into the #UniteIowa on Immigration Forum taking place on Saturday, Aug. 29. Watch the live video feed.
Spurred by requests from BVU students for a forum to meet presidential contenders, Dr. Brad Best and Lisa Best, professors of political science, spent the summer working with numerous students to help organizers of the #UniteIowa event, which many hope will spark a nonpartisan, productive conversation about immigration in Iowa. While the current presidential candidates were invited to attend this event, this forum is about more than politics for BVU students. They are turning their academic knowledge and passions into action.
The BVU Student Senate, along with the College Republicans and College Democrats organizations, are hands-on, working together to assist as on-site ushers and assistants for the #UniteIowa event that addresses a highly politically-charged topic. By blurring political lines and bringing all parties together, the event will give their fellow students and a wide-reaching community an opportunity to engage with grassroots Iowans who represent a broad spectrum of immigration views.
Students in the BVU digital media program are putting modern media approaches to work, preparing to cover the event through multiple media platforms, an event which has already received coverage online by NBC news and other news outlets. Their work covering this event will be included as part of Iowa Watch, the statewide student media corps which feeds into a wire service that can be used by the national media.
A crew of 12 students from UCN is tackling a full-scale, four-camera production to air the forum live on the UCN Campus cable channel and for playback on the web.
And that’s just a glimpse of BVU students putting their skills to work.
As moderator Kyle Munson from the Des Moines Register and a notable panel of speakers, including presidential hopefuls Gov. Lincoln Chafee and Gov. Martin O’Malley, take the stage on Saturday afternoon, event organizers hope the immigration conversation will be carried to other communities across Iowa and beyond.