Editor’s Note: Onur Toper served as the former digital director for The Heights. He was interviewed as a necessary source for this story by an editor with no experience working with Toper.
Just like the other roughly 16.6 million people who turned 18 since the 2020 presidential election, Onur Toper said this is the first presidential election that he can vote in.
Toper, campus chair of BC for Harris and MCAS ’25, said he felt a responsibility to do something as a first-time voter.
“This election is not about the next four years, it’s about the next 40 years,” Toper said.
Toper is a single player in the expansive game of political participation—left, right, and center—unfolding on campus this fall.
The autumn bustle of Boston College students this year is shadowed by the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
With November quickly approaching, the student body is tasked with finding its role in the next chapter of American history, walking the line between abstraction, activism, and apathy.
Student Leadership Across Party Lines
Ethan Folkman joined BC Republicans his freshman year, motivated to get politically involved in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Today, Folkman, MCAS ’25, serves as the club’s president.
As BC’s primary conservative student group, BC Republicans hosts weekly meetings and student debates to foster political discussions and promote conservative ideology on campus.
“My goal with this club this year was to—as was kind of the goal of the Republican National Convention this year—was to open the tent to make this as welcoming to as many sorts of people as possible,” Folkman said.
On the other side of the aisle is Spencer Daniszewski, president of the College Democrats of BC and MCAS ’25. According to Daniszewski, the overall goal of BC Democrats is to give students a space to discuss current events with people of like values and perspectives—especially in the build-up to Nov. 5.
“We’re very involved on the national, state, and local level,” Daniszewski said. “This is a big campaign right now. It’s really important, and we’re doing a lot for it.”
But running a political club on campus is about more than echo-chamber camaraderie—Daniszewski and Folkman said they aim to put their respective parties’ platforms into action.
BC Democrats hosts phone banking sessions targeting swing states, voter registration drives, and events in collaboration with Democratic organizations at other universities, Daniszewski said.
When the club hosted a watch party for the presidential debate in Devlin Hall in September, the turnout far surpassed their expectations.
“Over 100 people showed up, not even just BC Dems regulars, but just people who were interested in wanting to watch the debate,” Daniszewski said.
BC Republicans took their pursuits off campus this month to knock on doors and canvas for Jesse Brown, a Republican candidate for Massachusetts state representative.
While he hopes to increase the presence of BC Republicans on campus, Folkman said he also wants students to know that there is a broad range of ideologies among club members.
“It’s not necessarily pro-Trump, you know,” Folkman said.
While many students who support former president Donald Trump are involved in BC Republicans, not all members support the same candidate, Folkman said.
“I think that breadth and diversity of opinion allows for us to be much more focused, and that allows us to be a little bit more open,” Folkman said.
But unlike BC Republicans, BC Democrats’s mission to evoke student engagement is closely tied to its affiliation with BC for Harris.
“Only 10 percent of Gen Z said they’re not planning on voting,” Toper said. “So part of BC Democrats is trying to change that, and that happens one college campus at a time.”
BC for Harris also registers voters on the Quad, reaches students on social media, and hosts phone banks to call voters in battle states, Toper said.
“Most of BC is not from Massachusetts, and they can’t just vote in person,” Toper said. “So making sure people get their ballots on time before the deadline and are registered before the deadline is crucial.”
Fighting for Attention
Toper said he anticipates that maintaining the attention of students as they juggle other responsibilities will be a challenge to political organization at BC and beyond.
“I think part of a challenge that I’m foreseeing—and that probably every X-college for Harris chapter is foreseeing—is keeping students engaged and making sure they’re interested,” Toper said. “[The election] will come around quick.”
But that’s where on-campus political groups come into play, Toper said—to give students the push.
“That’s something that Michelle Obama emphasized in her DNC speech—it’s not enough to just sit around or go on Instagram or do these things that might not have ultimately as much impact as registering voters, phone banking, and getting the word out to other people,” Toper said.
But beyond politically engaged students who find themselves preoccupied with school, apathetic students are an entirely different obstacle—and a more difficult one to surmount, Folkman noted.
“It’s very difficult to reach them and change their mind about that sort of thing,” Folkman said.
To combat this, Folkman said BC Republicans has altered the way it frames itself to prospective members.
“Branding ourselves as a social club, a club where you can come and enjoy some pizza and talk with friends, has been really, really helpful in getting people to come and engage in politics,” Folkman said.
Deliberation Over Demonstration
In his private conversations with other BC students, Toper said most people have been in tune with developments in the presidential election. He also said that while most students do not keep up with the smaller details, he thinks they understand the stakes of the election’s outcome in November.
“I think BC—at least in my view generally—is not the most outwardly politically active campus in America, but politics ultimately is not something we should shy away from,” Toper said. “Especially in an election like this, it’s something that we should embrace, engage in, and talk about.”
Folkman said BC is not outwardly politically active, as he has not noticed many political demonstrations on campus. Instead, he thinks political conversations happen often in classrooms, including those he participates in for his U.S. foreign policy class.
“We talk [in class] about current issues in U.S. foreign policy, and today we had a really well-grounded and meaningful discussion of the Israeli-Middle East situation,” Folkman said. “So I do think those discussions are there.”
A focus on academic discussion rather than demonstration is a recurrent theme throughout civic engagement efforts on the Heights. BC’s Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, for example, is not a space for political mobilization, but rather one for questioning and deliberating, according to Director of the Clough Center Jonathan Laurence.
“I think we have to broaden our understanding of what it is to be engaged in supporting democracy, because it’s not only campaigning for candidates or causes,” Laurence said. “Sometimes, in a polarized environment, having head-to-head disagreements about policy or candidates isn’t the best way to actually learn about a way forward.”
This sentiment is echoed from the top down. Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Corey Kelly said in a statement to The Heights that the University hopes its students practice their civic duties through open and non-judgemental political dialogues.
“Part of Boston College’s mission is to prepare students for citizenship, service and leadership in a global society,” Kelly wrote. “Paying attention to political issues and events and exercising the right to vote are important elements of becoming a thoughtful, informed, and contributing citizen in our society.”
Campus Culture and the Power of Students
Lizzie Sheehan, CSOM ’27, said that although she thinks there is some political engagement on campus, it is not noticeable in the everyday lives of most students.
“I don’t think it’s a big driving force of the social culture,” Sheehan said.
Though BC students’ political engagement is not always visible, Kynan Bodley, CSOM ’27, said he is optimistic about BC students’ commitment to political activities.
“I think that BC students are probably some of the most engaged here in Boston because of the turnout at events like [the student involvement fair], and lots of other activities, and how involved everybody is on campus,” Bodley said. “So I’d assume that most likely, they’re politically engaged.”
Daniszewski also said that people’s perception of the University’s political activities relies on a comparative assessment of other schools.
“If we’re comparing ourselves to UC Berkeley or American or something like that, then yeah, we are probably pretty complacent,” Daniszewski said. “But at the same time, there’s a lot of people on campus who really do care and are getting involved.”
Gabriel Krause-Grosman, LSEHD ’27, said he notices a pattern in how BC students take political action on campus.
“I think it depends how you define politics,” Krause-Grosman said. “On the local level, definitely not as much from students in terms of political activism.”
Daniszewski said that while students are less politically engaged during non-presidential election years, he is nonetheless encouraged by the initiative he sees among his peers now.
“There’s definitely been a bubbling of interest and people trying to learn more,” Daniszewski said.
Both Folkman and Daniszewski pointed to U.S. history as evidence that shows how college students can successfully push for social change.
“All of U.S. history, we’ve seen that college campuses are a place where really immense change can come about,” Daniszewski said. “This is a place of massive energy, new ideas.”
And with history on their side, Folkman said, college kids ought to be a little more optimistic about their ability to impact the future.
“The idea that they can’t make a difference is wrong,” Folkman said. “I agree that it can be difficult, I certainly agree with that, but I definitely think that college students are absolutely able to be agents of change.”
Veronica Pierce contributed to reporting.
