By Megan Walsh, Staff Writer
On Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2010, students from many different political backgrounds entered Dempster Hall to watch the unfolding of the midterm elections at the University event President Obama's Midterm Exam: 2010 Election Results Party. Here chairs and televisions were set up where students could choose to watch Fox News, MSNBC, CNN or NBC New York while tables were set up full of refreshments from pizza to cookies.
"My hope is to have different elements of the Hofstra community to watch the results as a community," said Professor Richard Himelfarb, coordinator of the 2010 election party.
Catherine Ferris, junior, stated that she was interested in the election because it was going to "change everything" and added that if the president thought passing his initiatives was going to get any easier, "Obama is in for an unpleasant surprise."
Kelley Howard, sophomore, was excited about the election because it was the first one she got to vote in. "It's a hard process to go through to get the absentee voter ballot, but filling it out was easy," Howard said.
Generally, viewers also tended to watch or abstain from a certain station based on their political beliefs or desires. Many of the students leaning republican could be found watching the Fox news programming. However, others such as sophomore Jaden Glasford made it clear that CNN was their choice for many reasons including, "Fox is over there so I'm not going over there."
As students from the various television stations conversed about the election results and gave their various predictions as to which party would take the House and which party would take the Senate, Alana Glaubiger gave her evaluation of the election party as she took it all in, stating in agreement with Himelfarb saying, "It gives a chance for kids to have a community forum."
(Sean M. Gates/The Chronicle)