LAWRENCE, Mass. — Northern Essex Community College (NECC) students collaborate with history professor Richard Padova to publish “From FDR to Biden: The First 100 Days,” a booklet examining the beginnings of the presidential election. and immersed himself in the changing dynamics of modern presidential politics. 15 doses.
Students Taylor Gagne, Xavier Jimenez, and Mike McDougall investigated what the new president did and failed to accomplish during his reign, and whether he fulfilled key campaign promises. .
The project provided students with experience researching a booklet and digging deep into history, and it also fulfilled a final project requirement for Padova's Government 101 class.
Additionally, students gained a deeper understanding of the era in which they live compared to other eras in American history.
In a critical presidential election year, the booklet project captured students' imaginations, but for different reasons, Gagné and McDougall said in interviews last week at the community college's Lawrence campus.
Gagne, a 2023 graduate of Haverhill High School, enrolled in an early college program to earn credits, but just graduated from NECC with an associate's degree in liberal arts.
This fall, she will study literature and philosophy at Dartmouth College.
Since I was in junior high school, I have been interested in world politics, including Brexit, the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU).
For this booklet, she researched three recent presidents: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama.
It was difficult to find reliable sources and relevant observations about CEOs in the vast amount of online information.
“They made so many promises trying to decide what to focus on,” Gagné said.
She analyzed their speeches, identified themes, and created a timeline of what they said and when.
McDougal, 32, who works in information technology, attends NECC through MassReconnect, a program that pays for community college for people 25 and older without a college degree.
“I went back to school for the first time in 15 years,” he said. “This was exciting.”
He delved into the early records of Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.
“In some ways, I think it was easier for me,” he said, given that during those presidential years there was no internet and less information was available.
He organized the results by each president's major campaign themes, such as Nixon's on law and order and Reagan's on the economy.
“The most difficult thing for me was eliciting concrete (campaign) promises,” he said.
McDougall relied on primary sources whenever possible, using information from The American Presidency Project, a collection of presidential documents on the Internet.
Padova met with students weekly to check on their progress and answer questions.
Their report was required to include the president's laws and executive orders for the first 100 days or so.
Meanwhile, Padova said the project will examine the U.S. political system, its federal and state frameworks, its constitutional underpinnings, what powers each branch exercises and how they are balanced. He said Government 101 was built on classroom research.
It gave students the opportunity to explore the topic more deeply.
“I hope it enriches their souls,” he said.
The 20 students in the Government 101 class had the choice of a final project: They could research the president's first 100 days or conduct a poll and write a report that included an analysis of what their interviewees said.
This is Padova's fourth book on presidential politics and the second in which students have contributed research.
A free 50-page booklet published by NECC will be published later this month. This booklet is non-profit making and students are welcome to participate in its creation.
Informative and entertaining, this book builds on facts and anecdotes like this one at the beginning of Chapter 2.
“Harry Truman never expected to become president,” it begins.
This chapter describes Franklin Delano Roosevelt's unexpected rise to fame and the enormous weight that fell on his shoulders after his sudden death on April 12, 1945.
Readers learn that Dwight Eisenhower popularized the press conference, holding the first one on February 17, 1953, and that he held approximately 200 press conferences during his two terms, many of which were televised.
FDR's ambitious start saw him succeed in the first of his four presidential bids, establishing the 100-day concept.
He proposed and passed 15 New Deal programs that would provide loans and aid to Americans who suffered 25% unemployment and poverty during the Great Depression.
The family lost their farm and the bank went bankrupt.
Among the 15 major pieces of legislation was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which committed over 3 million young unemployed men to work on rural projects over a nine-year period. CCC crews camped in the 3,300-acre Harold Parker Forest in Andover, North Andover, North Reading, and Middleton, and carried out extensive clearing, reforestation, and building.
The federal emergency aid law poured billions of dollars into local work projects in states and cities to provide funding to millions of unemployed people.
After FDR, journalists, pundits, and historians have regularly speculated about what the next president will do in his first 100 days.
Padova, a collector of various presidential election memorabilia, has long been fascinated by politics.
