Junior meteorology major Jamie Nye said she is undecided as to which presidential candidate she will vote for but said she knows why students may lean more toward liberals than conservatives.

“Students are more open-minded to issues and are more willing to stand up for what they believe in,” Nye said.

According to an Oct. 21 survey by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, 52 percent of the students polled wanted Sen. John Kerry elected president while 39 percent supported President George W. Bush and 8 percent remained undecided.

The survey also showed students viewed President Bush as the stronger leader of the two candidates – 49 percent to 36 percent – but they generally didn’t like where he was leading them.

The poll was based on interviews conducted Oct. 7 to 13 with 1,202 students chosen randomly from a database of nearly 5.1 million students across the United States. The survey has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.8 percent.

Most students fall in the middle of the political spectrum, said David Rusin, director of undergraduate studies for the mathematical science department.

“I am not at all certain that there’s much of a left-leaning bias in the NIU student population; like almost any group in the U.S. today, the population is split near the middle,” Rusin said.

There is a very high number of first-generation college students at NIU, and if their parents are more blue-collar labor members or immigrants, they might traditionally be more aligned with Democrats, Rusin said. However, he also said many of the suburban and rural districts in and around NIU have a tendency to elect Republicans to local offices.

One NIU professor thinks certain factors and issues cause students to have a liberal mind-set.

Youth and higher educational achievement are factors that generally predict a more liberal attitude toward social issues, said Kay Forest, associate professor and chair of the sociology department.

Some recent research suggests college students as a group lean toward opposing the death penalty and supporting gay marriage rights, Forest said. She said most students fall somewhere in between being liberal and conservative.

“Think about the terms themselves,” Forest said. “Liberal means a supporter of social change and innovation. Conservative means a supporter of tradition and established institutions. Young people tend to see endless possibilities and dislike restrictions, while the experiences of age can teach that some traditions have their place and too much change has its social costs.”

The role of a teacher is not to teach a certain political agenda, Forest said.

“In an ideal educational environment,” Forest said, “an effective teacher will mentor a student in the skills of critical thinking and how to analyze an issue from more than one perspective.”

Peer pressure and politics are like anything else, Forest said – students who are vulnerable to peer pressure will likely vote like their friends, while those who aren’t, won’t be as easily influenced.

The Harvard survey also noted that 84 percent of college-age voters plan to cast a ballot Nov. 2, and college students could have a big impact on which candidates come out on top in a number of swing states.