Listen here to the IowaWatch Connection podcast:
The 2016 political campaign may be behind voters but the high awareness of its results and the rhetoric it spawned has, in many ways, not disappeared.
“I don’t know if its necessarily changed,” Sashay Carroll, a University of Northern Iowa student, said when asked in an IowaWatch/College Media journalism spring 2017 project whether political rhetoric calmed on the university’s Cedar Falls campus after President Donald Trump took office in January.
READ MORE: TRUMP PRESIDENCY REVIVES IOWA COLLEGE CAMPUS POLITICAL INTEREST BUT DISCOURSE CAN BE HARSH
IowaWatch asked that question on six Iowa college campuses during the spring semester because college campuses are to be these places where the free flow of speech and ideas makes for a better educational experience. And at this particular time in history, the semester was following a contentious presidential election that resulted in what now is a contentious presidency for many.
“I definitely notice things more because he is in office because I feel like I have to be more cautious,” Carroll, 20, from Iowa City and seeking a social work degree, said, referring to Trump. “But I wouldn’t necessarily say that I have seen a change at all.”
Others had similar things to say in this IowaWatch Connection podcast report that features their comments, a special IowaWatch report from student-run KBVU radio at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, and the thoughts of nationally syndicated talk show host Jim Bohannon.
