In today’s political climate, it can sometimes be hard for students to find common ground. But one club on campus is trying to change that by hosting students for a dialogue.

The Rowan Democrats have begun to do what they call policy night, during which groups can come and present on a political or social topic that they feel passionate about. The first group at the pilot meeting was the Rowan Environmental Action League, who took the opportunity to talk about man made climate change, and the need to implement political action on the subject.

For Donald McKay, a senior computer science major and member of the environmental action league, this was an opportunity the group couldn’t pass up.

“Usually in our club, we end up having this problem where people can feel very intimidated by politics,” McKay said. “Politics in general can be very complex and daunting, so what we are doing tonight is incorporating our message with [Rowan Democrat’s] message, and hopefully we can learn a little bit from them, and they can learn a little bit from us.”

When asked about the group’s long term plans for the event, senior mechanical engineering major Joe Miller, who also serves as president of the Rowan Democrats, said the mission was simple. They want to get more people talking about politics and current events

“Our overall goal as a club is to get more college students involved and get the rowan student body involved in politics,” Miller said. “And [with] these policy nights, our goal is to bring people who aren’t necessarily political into the political sphere, kind of have open conversations about it, and elevate political discourse on campus.”

While attendance at the first meeting was sparse, those who did come felt the event was constructive. Freshman political science major Michael Giuliani said that in his opinion, it was constructive for people to be at the meeting.

“You definitely had a lot of people who are already aware of what a big challenge this is,” Giuliani said. “But the more information you have, the more you can do. So just getting it out there, even if it’s with Democrats, Republicans, Independents, whatever, this shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Everybody needs to know about the dangers of climate change. I feel like people definitely understood how serious it was tonight.”

The next policy night meeting will be held on Oct. 11 in James Hall room 3112 at 6 p.m.

For questions/comments about this story, email news@thewhitonline.com or tweet @thewhitonline.