Wash U. students got a window into the world of politics at the Oct. 2 veep debate

Turns out the excitement surrounding the Oct. 2 vice-presidential debate at Washington University didn’t do much for the rest of the school’s political programming.

Student Life, the school paper, reports that despite the interest in the face-off between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, interest in campus political events — official ones, at least — has not been high.

The paper reports that few of the events arranged to coincide with the debate — a calendar fulls of lectures and forums on everything from the history of the presidency to the “mathematics of voting” — had overwhelming attendance.

“Students are clearly involved in the political process this year, and the programming that various groups have put on has really added to it,” sophomore Jordan Aibel, a program assistant at the school’s Gephardt Institute for Public Service, told the Student Life. “But at the same time I think that the excitement for the political process this year hasn’t necessarily translated into increased attendance.”

Rather, Aibel says, the busy college students have taken a more tried and true approach to political discourse.

“Students just want to talk about this with their friends,” she said.