The political science club is a group that works to bring awareness to students and staff about political and campus issues using different events such as speakers and films.
Joe Blankenau is the advisor of the political science club at Wayne State College. “The club has been around in one form or the other for most of the last few decades,” Blankenau said. But this year the club is being challenged in a whole new way with the pandemic.
According to Blankenau, in past years, the political science club “has helped with voter registration, invited any speakers to campus, participated in the Model United Nations, and travelled, most recently to Washington, D.C.”
Although they are not able to coordinate and participate in many of their regular activities, the members of the political science club have still been meeting frequently. The club meets on Monday nights at 5 p.m. in Connel Lecture Hall Room 131.
Zaynab Kouatli is the current president of the political science club at Wayne State. Although she is only a freshman this year, she has stepped into her role very well already.
The club has many events planned for this semester and has already held one Poly-Talk on campus. The main topics discussed at the first Poly-Talk were systemic racism and police brutality. The club considered this event to be pretty successful. They had many people show up and participate in the moderated discussion.
Wayne State’s political science club prides itself on being an all-inclusive safe space for members to discuss and share their opinions. The secretary of the club, Lauren White, believes in the importance of “different ideologies working together to make progress in the community.” This is exactly what the political science club works so hard to encourage.
Even during a global pandemic, the members of the political science club are hoping to plan many more events, like their first Poly-Talk of the semester, for all students at Wayne State to attend.