By Michael Napolitano
Who says you can’t have dessert first?
Northeastern kicked off the first NU Votes event Tuesday night with free ice cream and a speech from Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of the ice-cream manufacturer Ben ‘ Jerry’s. NU Votes is a series of eight campus events created to register new voters as well as provide information on the issues being raised in the upcoming presidential election.
“The speech that he’s doing isn’t directly political, but he talks about his social involvement, the way his business is affected by the overall political landscape,” said Cat Armato, vice president of programming for the Resident Student Association (RSA), one of the series’ sponsors. “The whole point is to generate interest among students who aren’t interested in politics right now.”
The series began this week and will end Nov. 4 with an election-watch party at afterHOURS. It is largely split into lighter events before the voter registration deadlines, and then picks up in late October with some information-oriented forums.
The 2008 voter registration deadline for Massachusetts is Oct. 15.
“Most voter registration deadlines generally kick in around Oct. 15, so all the events before that are to get people in, get them excited about the election and get them registered,” said Sam Peisner, president of the Council for University Programs (CUP), another of the series’ sponsors. “The second half is dedicated to getting people knowing what they’re voting for. Important as it is to get people to vote, it’s more important to vote for something.”
Among the events scheduled prior to the registration deadlines are a performance by satire group Capitol Steps on Sept. 29, and a Rock The Vote concert Oct. 10, although no details have been released yet on who will be appearing. A debate on the media’s effect on the election is slated for Oct. 23, and another pitting the College Democrats against the College Republicans is scheduled for Oct. 30.
“The goal of the programming side is to have a big mix, really to get the best mix,” said Stephen Lavenberg, vice president of collaboration for CUP. “We wanted to get all the student groups together … the series kind of snowballed.”
While CUP and RSA are the two main sponsors of the events, a total of 26 Northeastern groups have been listed as contributors by NU Votes. According to Peisner, the College Republicans and Democrats have “been involved in conversations on this the whole way through” while the Northeastern University Marketing Association (NUMA) has been helping with the series’ information campaign. The Husky Energy Action Team (HEAT) and the Northeastern Political Science Association (NPSA) both co-sponsored the Ben and Jerry’s speech, while Northeastern’s Department of Political Science will be running the Capitol Steps performance. Besides the events, voter registration and information tables are scheduled to be run until November by various fraternities, sororities and social or politically-oriented student groups.
“It’s a real good example of the many student leaders coming together,” said Ed Klotzbier, vice president for student affairs.
In his speech Tuesday night, Jerry Greenfield started by taking the audience through a synopsis of the entrepreneurship that led to what is now a multi-million dollar ice cream business. From the first years of Ben and Jerry’s venture in South Burlington, Vt. to the company’s famed “What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?” campaign against Pillsbury in 1984, Greenfield delivered a talk that kept the Blackman Auditorium audience of more than 100 both laughing and listening.
“I’ve reached a status in life where … I have a job with no responsibility and also no authority, so I’m like completely in limbo,” he said. “Maybe [it’s] something you can all shoot for.”
Greenfield also stressed the importance of businesses that give back to the community as well as make profits.
“Business has somehow gotten away with saying that our job is to simply maximize profit,” he said.
Greenfield said that he and co-founder Ben Cohen realized there’s a spiritual side to business as well. Since 1988, he said, Ben and Jerry’s has had a two-part bottom line on their annual reports: one financial, the other measuring what was being given back to the community.
Greenfield said in an interview with The News that he and Cohen are both “big Obama fans,” although the Ben and Jerry’s company itself does not back any particular candidate.
“I’m really interested in taking care of disadvantaged people,” he said. “I’m not that interested in giving more breaks to the rich people.”
Some students said Greenfield’s talk could have been more exciting.
“Honestly, I thought he had a really good point to make but it took him a bit of a while to actually get to it,” said Allison Wilhelm, a sophomore political science major. “It was really good, but in the beginning it was kind of boring.”
Others said they enjoyed the speech.
“I thought it was interesting what he said about how he found ways to combine business for profit with social movement,” said Sean Smith, a middler entrepreneurship and innovation major at Northeastern.
Information on the NU Votes schedule as well as registration deadlines and absentee ballots can be found at www.nuvotes.com.
