The Campus Vote Project will be hosting the Democracy and Dialogue Summit at Baldwin Wallace on October 11th, an event meant to educate students of Baldwin Wallace on campus power structures, what it means to show up for democracy, and where students should go if they want to make their voices heard. Marsita Ferguson, director of the Center for Community Engagement, said “We want to teach young people how to advocate for themselves and where power lies.” The event will be hosted in Sandstone 3 of Strosacker hall from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M., and lunch will be available for participants from 11 A.M. to 1 P.M., as well as door prizes throughout the event.
Some of the features of the Summit will be power mapping sessions which are designed to teach students the power structures on campus and who they should go to when they want to see change, as well as speeches from civic leaders designed to impower students to participate in politics and civic engagement. A guest from the Campus Vote Project, Alexis Crosby, will also be invited for a “Relational Organizing Lab” as a part of the breakout sessions that participants can engage in, designed to inspire students to further their involvement in campus leadership and political engagement altogether. These workshops are the most important part of the event, Marsita said, because they are designed to educate students on the essentials of how to participate in campus and political leadership.
“[Gen Z is] the largest voting group demographic in the United States right now,” says Marsita, “[they are] the future leaders of the world. I just want to make sure that I inspire [them] to make sure [they] know that.” Marsita says she hopes this event will encourage upcoming young voters to learn how to implement the changes they want to see, whether on campus or around the world, and she also stressed the importance of young voters educating themselves and making their voices heard, but making sure they know how to do so, even if it’s not in the ways they expect. “I spent years of my life in the uncomfortable zone…those are the things that grew me the most. Go do those things.”