Brought to campus by Harvard Students for Reich—a group that the candidate said is largely composed of students from that religion class—the former secretary of labor stressed the importance of college students’ involvement in the public sphere.

“In your lives and in these years at college, you are making decisions,” he said. “I urge you to spend time in the fray...of social justice.”

As part of his “Get Out the Vote” initiative, Reich stresses the importance of college students in the electoral process.

“I’m relying on college student to help with the Get Out the Vote drive,” Reich told The Crimson. “A lot of the momentum [in my campaign] over the last nine months has come from [them].”

President of Harvard Students for Reich Peter P. Buttigieg ’04 concurs, citing students as an important source of volunteer labor.

“[The Reich campaign] simply can’t compete with the tremendous sums of money raised by other candidates, especially the Republicans,” he says. “Students and other volunteer support will be the critical factor in whether we have a victory on Tuesday.”

Reich’s campaign appears well aware of the importance of college campuses in the electoral process—a philosophy that it has incorporated into its “grassroots” approach.

In campaigning, Reich has spoken at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Wellesley College, Middlesex Community College and Williams College—many of which have strong organizations in support of his campaign.

As a professor at Brandeis University, Reich also tends toward an intellectual tone and stresses that such dialogue need not be isolated from action in the public arena.

“The life of the mind and the life of action are not mutually exclusive,” he said on Friday. “They go together...the life of social action must have reflection, thought and analysis.”

Reich’s emphasis on civil action and liberal ideas—which he reiterated during Friday’s speech—may be attractive on college campuses, but he explains the role of students in politics from a moral perspective.

“Politics is not something you hold your nose to,” he says. “It is democracy in action.”

—Staff writer David S. Hirsch can be reached at hirsch@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Christopher M. Loomis can be reached at cloomis@fas.harvard.edu.