It’s that time of year again! Just as the underclassmen of University High School exchange finals, semester grades, and stress for the relaxing weeks of winter break, UHS Seniors are hard at work, preparing for what has come to be the most anticipated event of the school year – the Senior Mock Election Project. But, behind all the posters, videos, and hype is a history that dates back to the creation of the school.
“This has been a staple project since the school has existed,” said Paul Karlowicz, current AP Government teacher at UHS. Dr. Reginal Barr, former University High Government teacher and one of the original founders of the school developed the Mock Election Project as a competition debate between his two government classes.
“What Reg wanted to do was have a class and a project for gifted students,” said Karlowicz. This project was exactly that. Each “rank and file” student (students not elected as “Party Leaders”) was required to write a ten page research paper that the Party Leaders compiled into a twenty page platform, which was then memorized and debated against the Party Leaders in the other class. The UHS Junior class selected a wining party. These minimum project requirements have been exactly the same as long as the project has existed, but when Dr. Barr singlehandedly taught the class, the project had some major differences.
“In some ways, the original project mirrored how [a real presidential election] really is,” Karlowicz said. The project used to begin at the beginning of the school year; so that the mock debates would be held the same time the presidential debates took place. Furthermore, the junior voters were given a “voter persona card” describing a particular type of voter, and were to vote based on how that individual would. With just two classes and voter personas, the project more closely emulated that of a real election.
The Mock Election Project began to evolve in the fall of 1988, when Paul Karlowicz taught one of the two government classes.
“Reg was kind enough to let my class join the election, which began as a friendly competition between the classes,” he said. Once competition became a factor, the project took flight. “Each year, one group would come up with something different, and they would win. So the next year, every party would do that too.” Over the years, posters would go up, party videos would be shown to the juniors, sexually oriented party names and slogans like “The Golf Par Tee – We’ve got balls” emerged to try to sway juniors to vote for a particular party.
“Back in my time,” said Leiba Schuneman, 1996 UHS graduate and current math teacher at University High, “it was common practice to put together goody bags for the juniors to bribe them.” As the project expanded, old traditions were shed. When a third Government class was added, the two-party system was gone and the juniors disregarded their voter personas, which were later eliminated. Soon, sophomores, freshmen, and parents began showing up to the debates, which had to be moved from the Little Theater where they were originally held, to the cafeteria to seat the entire audience, and then again to the auditorium where they are held today.
“In the last fifteen years” said Karlowicz, “the project has become a showcase.” Each year, a local celebrity, usually from the school board or involved in Arizona politics is invited to mediate the debates, in hopes that the stereotype looming over the school that students “can’t have fun” can break.
In more recent years, the project has faced numerous problems. Despite having become a “rite of passage” for UHS seniors, “The faculty doesn’t always like it,” Karlowicz confessed, “it already had gone too far.” There have been complaints from teachers that platforms are very consistent across time, and that they are losing their connection to a real election process. However, the major threat to the project is new TUSD policy. This year’s freshmen class will only need one semester of Government rather than one year to graduate from high school, which will eliminate the project completely. “It’s a school tradition” said Schuneman, “I can’t imagine January without the Mock Election.” UHS teachers and counselors are encouraging underclassmen to take their (also required) semester of economics early in their high school careers, so that come senior year they will have a spare semester to be able to take a year of AP government and compete in the Mock Elections.
As for this year’s Mock Elections, the seniors have big plans. They’ll be working hard through December and January on everything from issues in North Korea to coming out of economic recession to where to put their propaganda. The final debates are scheduled in the auditorium on Wednesday, January 27th, where the Mock Election Project will once again set University High apart from the rest.
