{"id":27886,"date":"2019-09-29T14:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T19:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=27886"},"modified":"2019-09-29T13:38:13","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T18:38:13","slug":"apsus-pelp-students-bring-in-local-leaders-for-poli-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2019\/09\/29\/apsus-pelp-students-bring-in-local-leaders-for-poli-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU\u2019s PELP students bring in local leaders for Poli-Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Austin Peay State University (APSU) sophomore Phoenix Tarpy began her college career believing Clarksville-Montgomery County\u2019s elected leaders were inaccessible. Why, she thought, would they be interested in talking with college students?<\/p>\n

\"Poli-Talk<\/a>

Poli-Talk \u2013 a panel discussion on local politics hosted by APSU\u2019s President\u2019s Emerging Leaders Program (PELP)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

A few months later, on a warm September evening, Tarpy found herself sitting at the counter inside Johnny\u2019s Big Burger, discussing local politics with Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts, City Council member Valerie Guzman and County Commissioner Rashidah A. Leverett.<\/p>\n

\u201cI assumed, wrongly, that maybe they didn\u2019t care about students, people my age,\u201d Tarpy said. \u201cI realized they were much more accessible than I thought they were, and they really did care about what we thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tarpy joined the community leaders at the College Street restaurant on September 16th, 2019 after that evening\u2019s Poli-Talk \u2013 a panel discussion on local politics hosted by APSU\u2019s President\u2019s Emerging Leaders Program (PELP). The evening\u2019s guests included Pitts, Guzman, Leverett, County Mayor Jim Durrett, Montgomery County Sheriff John Fuson, Clarksville Police Deputy Chief David Crockarell, County Commissioner Joe Smith and City Council member Jeff Burkhart.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the panelists had great answers to our questions,\u201d Tarpy said. \u201cThey said Austin Peay students should care (about local politics) because we live in this community. The things they do still affect us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for Poli-Talk originated earlier in the semester, when Tarpy\u2019s PELP class attended a Clarksville City Council meeting and a Montgomery County Commission meeting. The Austin Peay students were among the youngest people in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were people more my parents\u2019 and grandparents\u2019 age going, but no one my age,\u201d Tarpy said. \u201cAnd we can vote, so why shouldn\u2019t we be there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Tim Winters, director of the APSU PELP program, challenged his sophomores to create an event that would encourage students to get involved in local government. Tarpy and Holly Abrams, fellow PELP student and co-leader, with help from the rest of the sophomore PELP class, accepted this challenge by developing a panel discussion featuring local politicians.<\/p>\n

About 50 students attended the event, which will take place annually on the APSU campus.<\/p>\n

[320left]In 1989, Dr. Oscar Page, former APSU president, established the PELP program to help cultivate leadership qualities in some of the University\u2019s top students. The program accepts students from all academic areas and provides them with special classes on leadership theory. PELP students receive an annual scholarship of $3,000, which is renewable over a four-year period.<\/p>\n

The students must maintain a cumulative collegiate GPA of at least 3.5, and they must enroll in at least 12 credit hours per semester. They must also take required PELP courses and fulfill other program requirements as outlined by the PELP director.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt (PELP) is the most wonderful opportunity I\u2019ve ever had in in my entire life,\u201d Tarpy said. \u201cWe have all these cool opportunities to get involved on campus and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

For information on PELP, visit www.apsu.edu\/pelp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Austin Peay State University (APSU) sophomore Phoenix Tarpy began her college career believing Clarksville-Montgomery County\u2019s elected leaders were inaccessible. Why, she thought, would they be interested in talking with college students?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,7080,262,12597,512,148,1759,9102,825,696,34128,7858,2920,1373,3787,34129,19343,34126,11202,10067,11513,34130,32728,34127,4337],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-7fM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27887,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27886\/revisions\/27887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}