About the Millennial Caucus Project
In cooperation with the Miller Center’s The First Year: POTUS 2017 project, the Millennial Caucus is a student-led initiative that allows and encourages engaged undergraduates from the University of Virginia to voice their thoughts and opinions on national policy issues. Through a partnership with a major policy institution and the network it offers, we as undergraduates are given a voice: a chance to tell our story and to talk about the issues that matter to us packaged in a way that will get Washington to listen.
Methodology
The goal of this project is to provide insight into the minds of millennial thinkers through undergraduate surveys. Each questionnaire consists of four to five questions related to issues within a particular topical volume (e.g. National Security), with each question containing a basic multiple choice answer set and an optional write-in box. Surveys are sent to various listservs using the Google Forms platform, which collects responses and compiles data.
Undergraduate students who receive the survey include those individuals who have opted-in or those who are in varying majors, organizations, and clubs across UVA grounds. These organizations, clubs, and majors include: Latino Student Association, Black Student Association, Minority Rights Council, LGBTQ, University Democrats, Sustained Dialogue, College Republicans, NoLabels, International Relations Organization, Jefferson Society, UVA first year students, Politics Department, Global Development Studies, and the Batten School of Public Policy Newsletter. We hope to expand our list of majors and academic clubs and associations as our project grows to make it more inclusive and representative, gathering a wider range of opinions as well as maintaining a response rate of 20 percent or higher.
Graduate and Ph.D. students, as well as faculty and staff, were excluded from the survey.
By its nature, the data is not derived from a random sample of the entire student population. This may allow for lurking variables that skew the data. Examples include volunteer and response bias. Participation is totally optional among those who receive the surveys.
You can read more about the First Year project and the Millennial Caucus on firstyear2017.org and through UVA’s student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily.
