Meet Sarah Tomas Morgan, the force behind the 2016 NDVotes campaign, which aims to connect Notre Dame’s students to the voting process…and educate them on political issues along the way.
The Primaries
Name: Sarah Tomas Morgan
Year: Sophomore
Hometown: South Bend, IN
Dorm: Pasquerilla West
Major: PLS (potential peace studies minor)
The Ideology
How did you decide that ND was the school for you? Well, I obviously grew up around ND, and for a while I thought that I wanted to get as far away from it as possible… I guess that when it came down to it, I had subconsciously always imagined ND as ‘what college was.’ *laughs* It’s hard to explain in a concrete way… But I really like the social justice mission of Notre Dame.
You’re a PLS (Program of Liberal Studies) major; how does that tie in with your interest in politics/social justice? I think PLS helps you get to the heart of what you’re interested in. We read a lot of political theory from its very beginning…the Greeks, Cicero… It also lets me study a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally be interested in, like science. I think it’s the best liberal arts education that you can get at Notre Dame, and it helps inform my thoughts about everything else going on in the world.
Sounds amazing! How did you choose that major for yourself? My high school had a curriculum really similar to PLS, and I loved that, plus, I love to read!
The Platform
Let’s talk about the NDVotes campaign. It’s definitely a great cause! How and why did you get involved? I felt like there was a lack of political dialogue on campus. I felt people were afraid to talk about politics, at least in the circles I was in. I had a roommate tell me that she “hates politics.” That really confused me because we live in a world of politics; nothing is excluded from politics. She talked about the Tea Party, and how nothing ever seems to get done in government, and we ended up having a discussion about our very different understandings of politics: she had an aversion to it, I was attracted to it. I approached a family friend in the CSC (Center for Social Concerns) to see what we could do about this. I knew ND Votes was a campaign in ’08 and ND had done Rock the Vote in ’04. I saw that it was a recurring problem on campus, and I decided to try and run NDVotes for 2016.
Can you tell us more about the campaign? We work according to a “task force model,” and the task force is made up of students just like me. The hope is to give students a forum that they can use to gain more information about political issues as we look towards the 2016 election. So, we want education and also discussion. We want to make politics less of a “bad word” on campus!
Do you have any advice for students who don’t know how to get involved? Definitely come to ND Votes events as you hear about them, but it would be best if we could effect change on a personal level. I maintain that we’re surrounded by this stuff [politics] every day, and we shouldn’t be afraid to bring important issues up. Sometimes it’s hard to get over that barrier of discussing important stuff with the people around you, but we need to talk more about the issues that are central to our lives.
Thank you, Sarah! HCND celebrates your active decision to be the change you want to see on campus.
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Images: provided by interviewee.