A political Web site geared toward giving a voice to young college students named Virginia Tech its "College of the Week" for March 16 through March 22.
Yourthreecents.com, which calls itself "The Political Blogging Community for Today's Youth" began naming big colleges throughout the country to the title each week to put a spotlight on that particular student body's opinions on national politics, international issues and their own school's policies.
The Web site was created by a group of recent college grads who felt that one thing they were lacking was a good place to voice their opinions and discuss current events with other young adults around the country.
Anyone can register with the Web site and begin debating, but the creators decided to feature one college a week to spark interest in the members of that school's population to visit the site and voice their opinions on the issues that matter to them.
"We choose schools that are large and influential with good records and reputations to get an idea of what drives the minds of students on campus," said Laura Neroulias, a spokeswoman for Your Three Cents and one of the creators of the site. "We want to go to these campuses (such as Virginia Tech) and ask, 'hey students, what do you think? What do you want?'"
Issues currently being discussed on the Web site vary in topic from Eliot Spitzer's resignation, to going green, to an anthrax vaccine.
By focusing on large and influential universities, Neroulias hopes that other young people's interest in the opinions of the student body will boost interest and participation on the Web site.
Neroulias stressed that many of today's young adults don't know much about what is going on in their own government or the world.
It is a way for people registered on the site to not only learn about their political system but to inform each other and exchange new ideas and opinions.
The College of the Week feature allows students at Tech to not only debate and comment on issues important to them regarding school policy, local issues, and international politics, but also for other visitors of the Web site to voice their opinions about the featured university.
Colleges featured on the site in the past have included Georgetown, Florida State, and the major schools in Texas combined into one group.
Most recently, the site featured Smith College, a woman's college in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Martha Geaneas, a freshman government and religion major at Smith College, said that the set-up of the site made it hard to tell which posters making comments the week Smith was featured were actually students at the school, but overall the experience of being featured was positive.
"Most students said that there were not many angry posts; they were all very amiable and most of people's arguments were backed up by actual facts," Geaneas said.
She went on to say that the Web site was more of a national news source, and the comments mostly revolved around similar issues and didn't delve into school policy or atmosphere.
"Overall, it was a good experience to be (featured) on a Web site so politically aware," Geaneas said.
Schools who are interested in being featured on the Web site can e-mail the site asking to be nominated for College of the Week.