Election Overload? Not for These Students!

In an election year jam-packed with media coverage, students at Lewis & Clark still clamored for seats in Joe Gantt’s Campaign Rhetoric and Ben Gaskins’ Presidential Politics courses. Gantt is assistant professor with term of rhetoric and media studies plus director of forensics, and Gaskins is associate professor of political science.

Ben Gaskins, associate professor of political scienceGaskins’ class filled within hours, while Gantt’s waitlist swelled to double the initial enrollment limit. Motivated by this intense student interest, both professors chose to expand their class sizes, giving more students the chance to explore the inner workings of campaign strategy and the presidency itself.

Gaskins and Gantt have a long history of designing their classes around pivotal elections. Presidential Politics is taught every four years, in sync with electing the nation’s top leader. Campaign Rhetoric is on a two-year cycle that alternates between covering presidential and gubernatorial races.

Gaskins appreciates the timeliness of his course. He recognizes that everyone is talking about the presidential election and that a lot of misinformation is circulating. “I think it’s good when we’re swimming in information and propaganda about the presidency to look at it from an academic perspective, and not just, you know, a Twitter/X perspective.”

Fittingly, each class incorporates real-time political developments into its curriculum. While Gaskins grounds his syllabus in the historical and constitutional framework for presidencies and the evolution of executive power, he also highlights social media discourse among pundits about the current state of politics.

“The course is neither fully ensconced in what’s going on in the political world or fully separated into just the academic conversation,” says Gaskins. “It’s trying to meld the two.”

Joe Gantt, assistant professor with term of rhetoric and media studies and director of forensicsGantt’s course focuses on the rhetoric of political campaigns, historical and modern, and includes analyses of recent speeches, debates, interviews, and advertisements. He relies on student interest to help him guide the discussion. “If I come in with 10 real-world examples on PowerPoint slides, I might get through 3 or 4 per class period,” Gantt laughs.

Assignments for both classes are grounded in the current political moment. Students in Presidential Politics are assigned the tall task of predicting the outcome of the election based on models and course readings, while Campaign Rhetoric students work on analyzing the campaign strategies of an assigned senate race.

Given the breadth of the material, each class is an interdisciplinary merge of political science, rhetoric and media, leadership psychology, and history. Gantt minimizes the prerequisites students must have for his course, accepting most political science and rhetoric and media courses, as well as related introductory classes in other subjects. Being “liberal” with what classes he accepts (“small ‘l’ liberal,” as he quipped) ensures that his students bring a variety of perspectives to class.

To help dispel partisanship, Gantt makes use of humor. “I pick on Republicans and I pick on Democrats alike, because all of them have the potential to make really, really horrendous political ads,” he says. Gantt collects those clips in a spreadsheet and makes sure he shows one during each class.

For both professors, making the election accessible is key. Lewis & Clark boasts a student body with a range of voting experiences. Because the campus houses students from across the United States and the world, addressing an election at the federal level is often more accessible to students from different parts of the country or to those who are international students experiencing an American election for the first time.

“If I can get people to think critically and deeply about the presidency as an institution and the role it does play and should play, domestically and globally, then I feel I have done my job,” says Gaskins.

Leah Huffington BA ’25, an economics major and Posse Scholar from Puerto Rico, says that taking Campaign Rhetoric with Gantt “has taught me to analyze the intent behind political communications and to question the narratives being presented.” She adds, “The course has truly allowed me to immerse myself in political engagement on campus.”

Rosie Gurnee BA ’25—an international affairs major, Pamplin Society Fellow, and founder of the Palatine Hill Student Voters Club—is also a student in Campaign Rhetoric. “The class is always super fun, contentious, and conversational,” she says. “It’s so interesting because we are studying something that is happening concurrently, so new stuff comes up every class. We talk about ‘the news,’ literally.”

Several members of Gantt’s class are leaders in the Voters Club and recently hosted a presidential debate watch party in Council Chamber. The event, which was covered by KOIN-TV, attracted one out of every 10 L&C undergraduates. According to Gurnee, events like the watch party “help students register to vote, request absentee ballots, learn what’s on their ballot, and finally, send those ballots in!”

Students cite different reasons for taking Gaskins’ and Gantt’s classes. While many seek careers in campaigning—including a former student of Gantt’s who is working remotely for the Harris campaign—many simply wish to gain a better understanding of the presidency.

“The thing I love about the Presidential Politics class is that there’s no one vision of the proper exercise of presidential power,” says Gaskins. “It depends on the temporal and global contexts, what Congress wants, what the courts look like, and so on. We just dive in!”

As Election Day approaches, each professor encourages their students to develop and practice their critical thinking skills, one of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education.

“I can’t predict how history is going to be shaped,” says Gaskins. “But what I can do for my students is provide some materials for them, lead a discussion, and then allow them to critique and make their own judgments, their own arguments. If they can be passionate, if they can be ready to discuss, that is so much better than apathy.”

Gantt agrees and adds, “I want my students to be better consumers of the information they receive, no matter what class they’re in. You never know when you’re going to have the opportunity to learn something that can help you engage in the future.”

Political Science Rhetoric and Media Studies