November 10, 2008
Front-Row Seats for BC Students on Election Night
On November 4, Brooklyn College students witnessed history in a monumental fashion. Not only did a substantial number of them vote for the first time, but many also ably represented the College at two public events during the election night watch.
More than 150 students from various clubs and student government bodies crowded the lower level of the Brooklyn College Student Center to participate in the “Election Watch” program sponsored by the Graduate Student Organization. At around 9:30 p.m., WABC-TV New York field reporter Joe Torres arrived to interview some of the students to get their reactions as results started to roll in.
Across the East River in Manhattan, scores more Brooklyn College students responded to CNN’s invitation to join the election countdown at its Times Square Election Center. A crowded busload of Brooklyn College students, drawn from academic majors across the spectrum, joined hundreds of students from other New York City colleges in packing the bleachers set up for what the press had billed as “the most momentous election of the century.”
“When flashing screens announced Democrat Barack Obama’s victory, Times Square erupted in celebration,” stated Aleksandra Khakalo, a BC sophomore majoring in Speech Pathology who attended the CNN event.
“Taxi cabs raced through the streets in a reveling chorus of blasting horns, and faces glow triumphantly all around. This is certainly a monumental election and there is a mutual yearning among my classmates to say, ‘History has been made and we are a part of it.’ ”
“It was a magnificent election to be part of,” said senior Dane Peters, a political science and Africana studies major from Trinidad and Tobago who came to the United States a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Now a U.S. citizen, Peters volunteered to register voters and voted for the first time this year.
“Barack Obama seems to have energized the youth in such a way that we will trust him
and have faith,” wrote Loius DeMeglio, a business management and finance major. “He knows that people want to help him and we may all end up participating more and more in government and politics to do that.”
“His victory makes up tenfold for all the disappointments in the 2004 election,” Peters added.
November 4 will no doubt go down as one of the more memorable nights in the country’s history. And BC students were glad to bask in the public eye.