Roxboro, NC - The North Carolina head of a national nonpartisan organization whose mission is to energize and engage young voters, especially the half of 18-29 year-old Americans who lack four-year university experience, presented 10 computers to Piedmont Community College on Tuesday. "This generation is technology based," said Generation Engage State Chairman Courtney Crowder. "Technology is so important to our future. These computers are symbolic of that." In its first year of operation in North Carolina, Generation Engage has organized several forums at which Democratic and Republican elected officials ­from the local to the national level ­ have spoken to young voters.  Congressman Brad Miller (D-13) spoke at Tuesday's gathering at P.C.C.'s Roxboro campus.

"We really want elected officials and community leaders to come out and speak to us," Crowder told the students assembled. That way, young adults can become involved in political issues from an informed perspective. "What that donation of 10 computers symbolizes is the amount of information [and] the issues that we can affect," Crowder said.  "We have to be inquisitive and seek out the knowledge." According to Randy Young, P.C.C. vice president of instruction and student development, the computers will be placed in the student success centers on both PCC campuses.  "They will live a useful life in giving students access to digital information," Young told Crowder.

The students who attended Tuesday's function were clearly engaged already, asking Miller about such things as jobs, the economy and student loans. Student Government Association President Selena Thornton said those issues are especially important to community college students, who often have to juggle family responsibilities and commuting costs with the challenge of classes. "We do need an engaged generation of younger folks willing to get involved in politics," Miller said. Generation Engage Executive Director Adrian Talbott said Tuesday's event was part of broader effort to build infrastructure in North Carolina's rural communities. Talbott said Apple iChat videoconference technology will enable students at community colleges across the state to participate in interactive, meaningful dialogues with political leaders.  Footage from past iChat forums at North Carolina community colleges can be viewed at Generation Engage's website: www.GenerationEngage.org .

Roxboro, NC -- A group of students at Piedmont Community College this week had Congressman Brad Miller on the hot seat, firing questions about everything from federal Pell Grants to immigration control to current gasoline prices. Miller had to be quick on his feet in order to keep up in the sometimes spirited question and answer session held in the Gordon P. Allen Learning Resources Center on PCC's Person County campus.

The gathering was organized by Generation Engage, a group founded almost two years by recent college graduates Devin and Adrian Talbott, the sons of former deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, and Justin Rockefeller, son of Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV. Generation Engage furnished computers for PCC's Caswell County campus that will allow students better access to future community forums via iChat video conferencing technology.

Adrian Talbott, in a telephone call to The Courier-Times following Tuesday's forum at PCC, said Generation Engage hopes to build an infrastructure in rural communities across North Carolina and other states that will allow young people better access to politicians and other speakers.

Many today believe young people are apathetic about politics and current events, Talbott said, but that is not the case. Young people merely need to be engaged in conversations in which their views may be heard. "Democracy is a dialogue," said Talbott, "not a monologue of 30-second sound bytes or commercials." Responsible voters are not made by television ads or mass-marketing campaigns, he observed.

"The wisest investment politicians can make in the future of our democracy is in young people at the local level," Talbott said. Generation Engage hopes to raise civic awareness among college students and young people not enrolled in college and afford them a chance to have their views about politics and the federal government heard. The group is a non-profit, non-partisan organization, said Courtney Crowder, North Carolina state chairman of Generation Engage.

Working with the community college system, said Crowder, is a good way for the group to reach its target base of young people between the ages of 18 and 30 and to involve them in "conversations about things that are important to them."

According to www.GenerationEngage.org , in 2004, there were an estimated 12.1 million 18 to 24-year-old Americans with no college experience. This constituted roughly 49 percent of the nation's estimated 24.9 million 18-24 year olds. Almost 90 percent of four-year universities employ some type of civic education program, and college students are twice as likely to vote as non-students. Large universities and private colleges use their infrastructure, funding base, and alumni networks to connect their students with the political process. Generation Engage is premised on the belief that young people, especially those without the benefit of a four-year college experience, suffer not from a lack of interest, but rather from a lack of access. Generation Engage aims to address this disparity.