The Eagleton Institute of Politics’ announcement on Friday, March 2, of Hillary Clinton’s visit to Rutgers surprised students, faculty, and staff scheduled for March 29, 2018.

The online registration for the event opened Tue., March 6 at 12:00 pm. The online registration closed at 12:05 pm. The available tickets were taken in five minutes.

Yeah.

Some people were devastated:

And then, others spoke of reason:

I agree. It painfully seems as if the primary reason why people have filled a venue is how famous the speaker is. The Eagleton Institute does not usually have this kind of turnout or any crowd of similar size.

For the sake of Democracy, it is not good if we only pay attention to the famous and influential, but not to the not-so-popular, but still influential.

Democracy is democratic because rational citizens who become informed gather together and become influential in the making of law and policy.

How are we supposed to end the opioid crisis, if we do not hear from experts how the opioid crisis started?

How are we supposed to end mass incarceration, if we do not hear from others the work they have done to try to end it?

How are we supposed to do anything, if we do not know it?

This goes to me too. While I wanted to attend this event badly, I had not shown the slightest interest in any event previously held by the Eagleton Institute--I was not even aware of those events.

Not attending an event by the Eagleton Institute (in four years at Rutgers) does not make you or I bad citizens. I read current events on my phone concerning politics very frequent on a daily basis. Of course I ‘feel’ involved, but I still need to ‘do’ more.

For those of us who read a lot of news and give a lot of ‘likes’ to our causes, these do not amount to action. Our participation needs to start counting.

We need to be present. People need to hear our voices, only then we will be accurately represented.

Regardless of what party you may identify with or what your favorite season is, we all need to start engaging more. We cannot wait until a topic arrives in the news to start paying attention to it.

Plus, it is very refreshing to meet with people that share the same passion as you about policies and events that affect us.

Thus, my gameplan is to increase my civic engagement. I will learn more (not just through my phone’s news app), and I will be part of a conversation that can grow and can take my community and I places, alongside people.

I invite you to do the same.

My goal with this piece is not to rant about our disregard for Democracy if it is not famous.

Instead, I want this writing to hold me accountable to participate in Democracy at every level — big and small, marches and council meetings alike — and to hopefully motivate others to do the same.

On that note, if you are a Rutgers student or alumni, here is a link to the Eagleton Institute’s schedule of events for the Spring of 2018.

If you are a student at any other University, tell me if you can relate with this, and if you want to, go ahead and find out any events that may be happening locally or nationally that you may want to attend, share them with others too.