Written by: Tom Feaster ‘69
As the November midterm election approaches, Marietta College students will hear plenty about foreign policy, cultural disputes, and national political controversies. Those issues deserve attention. But an election is also an opportunity to learn about something much closer to campus: how the government affects young people’s lives every day.
I learned that lesson in Marietta more than half a century ago. I came to Marietta College as a student and graduated in 1969. That same year, I began my first career teaching history and civics in the Marietta City School System. While I taught students about government, the community taught me an equally important lesson about citizenship. Government matters most when we understand how it works in our own communities.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs provides an interesting way to think about that relationship. People need food, water, shelter, and stability. They need safe communities and reliable public systems. Only when that foundation is reasonably secure can they devote greater attention to concerns farther removed from everyday life.
That principle remains relevant in Marietta in 2026.
Roads and bridges, water and sewer systems, housing costs, public safety, economic opportunity, and the ability of young people to build careers and lives in the Mid-Ohio Valley and communities across the country are not simply political talking points. They are practical issues that help shape the fabric of any community.
For college students, there is another lesson. Citizenship involves more than following presidential politics on television or social media. It means understanding what local, state, and federal governments actually do, which officials are responsible for which decisions, and how those decisions affect the places where we live.
Before participating in an election, students can ask candidates of every party the same basic questions. What responsibilities does this office actually have? What does the candidate propose to do? How would the proposal be paid for? What evidence supports it? After the election, how can citizens determine whether those promises were kept?
Those are not Republican questions or Democratic questions. They are citizenship questions.
More than fifty years after leaving Marietta College, I still believe in something I first learned here. Democracy works best when citizens understand their government, examine the issues for themselves, and make their own informed decisions.
For a new generation of Marietta College students, that responsibility now belongs to you.
Tom Feaster, M.Ed.
Marietta College, Class of 1969
Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil and Family Mediator
Edited by: Jackson Bandy (knb003@marietta.edu)
