Highlanders in the News: Week of Nov. 4, 2024

Every other week, our Highlanders are using their education to do extraordinary things. Here, we'll highlight some notable mentions from local, regional, national and international news media. Whether our students, alumni, faculty and staff are featured as subject matter experts in high-profile stories or simply helping make the world a better place, we'll feature their stories.

Voter cycles

By and large, most of Radford's current undergraduates were not yet old enough to vote in the last presidential election, in 2020, but a recent event helped them participate in the process this year and aimed to fuel their civic engagement.

It was Highlanders Vote: Road to the Ballot Box, a two-day series of panels, conversations and activities that began Nov. 4 and culminated in a block party and a live watch of the election on Nov. 5.

Along the way, participants got non-partisan information about current events and topics - such as districting and the electoral college - as well as opportunities to voice their opinions, plus chances to destress through yoga sessions and pet therapy.

Several strategic communications master's students took part - including organizers Kirsten Cecil, Leonora Lynn, Mary Rose Prosinski, MacKenzie Wallace and Andrew Walls - as well as faculty members Alyssa Archer, Scott Dunn, Chapman Rackaway and Daniel Reed.

The Roanoke Times placed "Highlanders Vote" on the front page of its Election Day edition, noting that the event was designed to offer the university's wide-ranging student body "a sense of community."

"[We] get to promote these really awesome values of collaboration and unity and consensus on campus," Prosinski told the newspaper, adding, "On top of that, kind of selfishly, we get some really great practical experience."

"Overall, it was a success," Wallace told us the following day. "We were very happy with the turnout.

"We wanted to make sure students understood not only how to vote but also the importance of their vote in shaping the future."

Voice of authority

In addition to the role he played in Highlanders Vote, Chapman Rackaway, a professor and the chair of Radford's political science department, was recently called upon to weigh in on the broader spectrum of the race.

On Oct. 30, Rackaway appeared on WSLS-TV with news anchor John Carlin to discuss the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the dispute over Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin's executive order regarding the state's voter rolls.

During the interview, he interpreted the situation for viewers, explaining why the lawsuit came about, what it meant for Virginia residents and how they could check their registration status in advance of election day.

The following week, he was consulted for a story, also by WSLS, that looked at the changing landscape of modern political discourse. Rackaway pointed to widening gaps between the two central political parties in the U.S., the effect of expanding data and social media, and offered viewers advice they can apply to just about any point in time going forward.

"It's up to the individual voters to bust out of their echo chambers, intentionally seeking out people and viewpoints that don't necessarily reinforce what they believe, and then trying to understand them," Rackaway told WSLS.

Later that day, on Nov. 5, he pulled a Channel 10 hat trick when he logged on for an election night chat, also with Carlin, before the final tallies were in, in which he ran through the various factors that could affect the outcome.

And then, just to round it all out, as the dust settled on the morning of Nov. 6, Rackaway sat down with WFIR news talk radio for a six-minute interview to talk about Roanoke's city council race and its as-yet-uncalled mayoral election, the reliability of polling and the mechanics of provisional ballots, among other topics.

"A helping hand"

Earlier this fall, after parts of western North Carolina were devastated by Hurricane Helene, countless heroes pitched in to offer help - and right among them was an accomplished Highlander.

Holly Rindorf '17 is a medical laboratory scientist who works at LewisGale Medical Center in Salem, and she was part of a group of employees who, in early October, traveled to Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, to volunteer relief.

In a recent report for Roanoke's WDBJ7, reporter Joe Dashiell talked to Rindorf and others about their efforts, working alongside residents of the area who had been affected by the storm yet were still "coming in with a smile on their face and working in the lab to provide care for their patients," Rindorf said.

"If something like this were ever to happen to us here, I hope that there would be people who would show up and lend us a helping hand."

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