Thursday, October 27, 2016

USFSP Road to the White House 2016 student front page Tampa Bay Times

RTWH 2016 student Antonio Permuy was on the front page of today's Tampa Bay Times -- pictured getting ready to hear Hillary speak in Tampa.

Many students in the Spring 2016 course are still engaged with their candidates/campaigns. 

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

USFSP RTWH 2016 student Victor Sims campaign for State House featured in Tampa Bay Times

Proud of Road to the White House 2016 alum for stepping up to run for office even before the semester was over!

 For the whole story, click here  Devin Rodriguez article in Tampa Bay Times

"USFSP Student Sets Sights on Florida House Seat"
By Devin Rodriguez
Tampa Bay Times, May 6, 2016

"This year, he was in professor Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan's 'Road to the White House' class, which spent 10 days in New Hampshire volunteering in presidential campaigns of the primary there. Sims worked for Hillary Clinton. Sims was 'positive, upbeat, enthusiastic," McLauchlan said, 'His enthusiasm is infections.'"

"Sims said having a relationship with the community is also important to him. It's something he learned at USFSP."





USFSP RTWH 2016 student Victor Sims run for State House, Crow's Nest Article by Devin Rodriguez

For the complete story, click here Devin Rodriguez article about Victor Sims

"Undaunted by Challenges, Student Seeks Seat in Legislature"
By Devin Rodriguez
USFSP Crow's Nest, Vol. 50, Issue 26, March 28-April 3, 2016







Monday, October 17, 2016

USFSP Road to the White House 2016 featured in USFSP magazine

The USFSP Magazine featured an article "New Hampshire Primaries Become Classroom for 'Road to the White House' Course"

"Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan, associate professor of Political Science, is focused on immersive, experiential learning. . . . 'There's really nothing ;ike being up there, in the snow, meeting the candidates and being part of the process firsthand. It's extraordinary,' McLauchlan said."



Monday, May 16, 2016

USFSP Road to the White House featured in USF Magazine

The Spring 2016 edition of the USF Magazine included an article about the RTWH 2016 by Casey Crane. 
"New Hampshire Primaries Become a Classroom"


Thursday, April 28, 2016

USFSP RTWH 2016 students present at Campus Board meeting



It was an honor to share our experiences on the Road to the White House with the USFSP Campus Board, President Genshaft, Chancellor Wisniewska, and the leadership of USFSP

After Dr. McLauchlan made a brief presentation and showed the WUSF TV video and the video prepared by RTWH student Emily-May Thatcher, students Sarah Adams, Yaite Ruiz, and David Thompson answered questions posed by members of the USFSP Campus Board. 


Monday, April 11, 2016

USFSP Alumni College, Road to the White House presentation

Professor Judithanne McLauchlan enjoyed speaking to USFSP alumni at the Alumni College event on Friday, April 8th.





Sunday, April 3, 2016

USFSP Road to the White House students present on a panel at the Florida Political Science Association Annual Meeting

On Saturday, April 2nd a group of 8 Road to the White House students presented at a panel

"The Road to the White House"

moderated by Professor Judithanne McLauchlan.

Dr. McLauchlan presenting on the "Teaching Political Science" panel

Dr. McLauchlan presenting on the "Teaching Political Science" panel


Quick tour of the Florida Southern campus


USFSP Road to the White House students present at the FPSA conference

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

USFSP Road to the White House 2016 course video

A special thanks to Emily-May Thatcher for creating this Road to the White House 2016 video, documenting our adventures in NH during the first in the nation primary.

Click here to watch the video

USFSP RTWH 2016 course video

Monday, February 29, 2016

Samantha Putterman's Crow's Nest Article -- Dr. Judithanne McLauchlan's USFSP Road to the White House class -- Vol. 50, Issue 19

Samantha Putterman featured the Road to the White House in an article on the front page of Vol. 50, Issue 19 of the Crow's Nest:
Link to Samantha Putterman's Crow's Nest article





 Here is the full text of the article:


23 USFSP students hit the road – to the White House.

February 1, 2016 12:00 pm

 Twenty-three USF St. Petersburg students set off for New Hampshire on Sunday afternoon to work on the campaigns of seven presidential candidates.
For the next 10 days, the students in the university’s quadrennial “Road to the White House” class will split up and join campaigners for Democrats Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley and Republicans Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush.
The six-credit course is offered every four years during presidential primaries. It is directed by Dr. Judithanne McLauchlan, who has worked on five primaries in New Hampshire.
This year’s trip marks her fourth, and largest, group of students.
“I usually have every campaign covered, which is my goal,” she said. “But I let the students pick (their candidates) themselves. (When) you’re up there, going door-to-door in the snow, you want to believe in the candidate. I wouldn’t want to put somebody with someone they might not prefer. It wouldn’t be the same.”
Registering for the course wasn’t as simple as typing in a CRN course code in Oasis. Students had to go through an application process first.
“I look at their resumes so I know their year, GPA, major, academic standing, if they’ve worked on campaigns before, who they want to work for and why,” McLauchlan said. “Not everyone I accepted knew who they wanted to work for, and that was fine. They didn’t have to know. But most of them had an idea.”
The group is comprised of multiple majors: political science, international studies, mass communications and psychology.
After their flight landed Sunday, the class was scheduled to have a group dinner, which would serve as their last “what to expect” meeting.
“Since Monday’s (Iowa) caucus day, we aren’t going to have a long meeting that morning,” McLaughlan said. “We’re just going to get everyone to their placements as fast as we can.”
Results of the Iowa caucuses, a much-ballyhooed event in the long campaign, will be out on Monday night. 
The class has an online blog that will serve as a one-stop-shop to see highlights from the various campaigns, while students will update their own personal blogs.
Three of the course credits serve as a seminar about the history of politics of presidential campaigns, with the remaining three designated to the fieldwork campaign internship.
“Generally, we’re going to have seminars in the morning, and by lunchtime, I’ll drop them off,” said McLauchlan. “Then they’re at their placements the rest of the day, into the evening, and so on.”
The group rented two 15-passenger vans. Twelve students are in Salem, where they will work on the Sanders and Clinton campaigns. The other 11 will be in nearby Manchester, the headquarters for Bush, Rubio, O’Malley, Cruz and Trump.
Most of the students’ voter contact work will involve door-to-door canvassing, phone banks and campaigning on street corners with signs. The New Hampshire primary is Feb. 9.
“We’ve got a very aggressive agenda,” McLauchlan said, “but we will be overlaying that with stops to see candidates interacting with real voters, taking tough questions – not just television advertising and 30-second sound bites.
“I’m excited for my students to get out there and see it. It’s real grassroots, retail politics.”

View the group’s course blog or individual student blogs to follow Dr. McLauchlan’s class in real time.



USFSP Crow's Nest article -- Vol. 50, Issue 20 -- Samantha Putterman profiles Dr. Judithanne McLauchlan's Road to the White House class

While we were up in New Hampshire, members of the USFSP community back home were able to follow along with our adventures via the students' blogs.  Samantha Putterman pulled some highlights for the Crow's Nest:




Link to the Crow's Nest article

For links to the students' blogs: 
http://www.usfsp.edu/road-to-the-white-house/2016-student-blogs/
 The Crow's Nest
USFSP students work with presidential candidates
February 8, 2016 11:18 am
During the whirlwind 10-day adventure to New Hampshire, two USFSP students posed with a cardboard cutout of Democratic contender Hillary Clinton and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who was campaigning for Clinton.
 Courtesy of Road to the White House 2016 Donald Trump holds up a USFSP T-shirt at his rally at Bay Community College in Portsmouth, N.H., on Feb. 4.
Courtesy of Road to the White House
Donald Trump holds up a USFSP T-shirt at his rally at Bay Community College in Portsmouth, N.H., on Feb. 4.

The students got close to several of the candidates, including Donald Trump, who posed for a photo holding up a USF St. Pete T-shirt.
They have manned phone banks, gone door-to-door in countless neighborhoods, gotten front seats at candidate appearances and posed for photos with Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.
And some of them have seen snow for the first time.


For more than a week, New Hampshire has been the epicenter of the 2016 presidential campaign, more than 20 students from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg have been in the middle of the action.
Under the direction of political science professor Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan, the students have worked in the campaigns of seven of the candidates seeking a strong showing in Tuesday’s important New Hampshire primary.
McLauchlan, herself a veteran of several campaigns, has led this class every four years since 2004. She and the students move quickly from class seminars and field trips to campaign events.
They have even made news themselves. They appeared in the campaign coverage of the New York Times, CBS News, News Channel 8 in Tampa, the Miami Herald, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and other news outlets.
This is what some of the students have posted on the blogs they are maintaining during the 10-day internship.


Samantha Kendall, Bernie Sanders campaign

SamanthaKendall
Courtesy of Samantha Kendall
So we were minding our own business, working in our mini office, when there was a knock at the door. It was a reporter and photographer from the New York Times there to interview us about working on the campaign.
It was absolutely insane. The NEW YORK TIMES WAS INTERVIEWING ME. It was the greatest moment of my life. And then a TV crew and a reporter from (the cable TV network) Al Jazeera America popped into the room and interviewed us some more. Oh, and then CBS News dropped by after that for some more interviews.
After CBS, a reporter from a local New Hampshire paper stopped by as well, followed by some really cool guys from an organization called HeadCount. They are a nonprofit organization that travels all over the United States to different concerts and events and registers people to vote!
There are also some really cool people working in our office. We’ve got a couple of Aussies, we met a Panamanian, and we also have a refugee from Sudan as one of our supervisors. Probably the most diverse political campaign office that has ever existed, ha ha.


Antonio Permuy, Hillary Clinton campaign

Antonio Permuy
Courtesy of Antonio Permuy
It’s been a while since I last had to canvass, and today was a little more challenging because we had to go knocking on doors in the rain.
However, any time it got difficult, I just remembered Hillary’s energy and drive from the day before and her overall perseverance in the past, and I got through it.
Our office has a simple sign on the ceiling that reads, “Call by call, knock by knock, inch by inch,” which really captures the spirit and tone of the closeness of this race and how hard-fought it will be ….
Hillary herself is keenly aware of this and that major, lasting progress is rarely achieved through a short burst or swell of revolution, but rather a series of carefully and patiently taken steps that are regularly tended to and followed up with over time.
I’m proud of my work, proud of my candidate, and see my own goals being projected by and through her. I really do feel a connection with her and identify with her and her ability to endure anything, bounce back and keep standing through it all.


Courtney Fornof
Courtesy of Courtney Fornof

Courtney Fornof, Marco Rubio campaign

It has been an early and exciting morning! We departed our hotel at 6 a.m. to attend a town hall for Marco Rubio in Bow, New Hampshire.
Sen. Rubio is a great public speaker and is very good at connecting with his audience on a personal level. He was generous enough to take the time to answer audience questions, and I was lucky enough to sit in the front row and take it all in.
Something I especially love about Rubio is that he isn’t afraid to talk off script, and he is clear on the ideas he is planning to bring to the presidency.
I encourage you all to research and watch some of his speeches. He really is a great and motivating speaker.


Salvador Encinas
Courtesy of Salvador Encinas

Salvador Encinas, Ted Cruz campaign

We got up really early (to get to) Sen. Marco Rubio’s town hall event in Bow. For me, it was the first time (seeing) a sitting U.S. senator!
After the town hall, we were dropped off at our campaigns. At the Cruz HQs, I phone banked for several hours until I and the other volunteers helped in Sen. Cruz’s town hall event in Nashua.
It was a great pleasure for me to shake hands and have a picture with a potential president of the United States!




Emily Hughes, Jeb Bush campaign

EmilyHughes1
Courtesy of Emily Hughes
USFSP students Emily Hughes (left) and Sarah Adams (right) with Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush.
To say that yesterday was incredible would be an understatement …. (At the Bush campaign headquarters) we spent a few hours (phone) banking and helping get things set up around the office …
Around 4 p.m. we were told the boss was coming in. And that’s when the office went into hyper mode. Everyone was frantically making calls, looking productive and anxiously awaiting the governor (Bush) to come in.
Once he arrived he took the time to personally thank each of the volunteers and shake their hands….
Later that evening at dinner, my friends began to blow up my phone. It appears I had made the cover photo of online magazine BuzzFeed!


Mark Schreiner's University Beat TV segment, Dr. Judithanne McLauchlan's USFSP Road to the White House class

Here is the link to Mark Schreiner's  University Beat TV segment about the RTWH class

University Beat TV Link -- RTWH 2016 -- Mark Schreiner


Saturday, February 27, 2016

Catch Dr Judithanne McLauchlan on "That Business Show" with Jamie Meloni on 1250 AM, Wednesday, March 2nd at 8:00 am

Tune in to "That Business Show" with Jamie Melonie, 1250 AM on Wednesday, March 2nd at 8:00 AM

Thanks to Jessica Rivelli of Working Women of Tampa Bay for this opportunity!

USFSP Course Video RTWH

Ms. Emily-May Thatcher and Ms. Samantha Kendall created a video of our epic #FITN New Hampshire Primary experience.  Watch it here:

Link to RTWH video

 

USFSP RTWH will be featured on WUSF University Beat TV on Sunday, 2/28 at 6:30 PM, created by Mark Schreiner

Mark Schreiner's segment about USFSP RTWH will be featured on WUSF University Beat TV on Sunday, 2/28 at 6:30 PM

Here is the promo video:

WUSF TV University Beat Promo Video

We'll post the link on this blog when it's available.


Wednesday, February 24, 2016

USFSP 50th Anniversary RTWH Showcase Event -- Poynter Corner

On Monday, February 22nd we held a Showcase event, co-sponsored by the Poynter Library and supported by the 50th Anniversary grants program.  We enjoyed sharing our experiences with the greater USFSP and St. Petersburg community. Thanks to all who attended!