For the second year in a row, a team of Carleton College students has moved to the final round in the national Debating for Democracy competition. Debating for Democracy (D4D) is a national program sponsored by Project Pericles that asks college students to research a policy issue and then write an informed letter to their elected officials.
STOP PRESS: The Carleton team has won the Project Pericles competition! After a stellar performance at the conference in New York, they received a grant to implement an advocacy campaign around student-centered education.
Anna Fure-Slocum, and NickWelna, both juniors, wrote to Rep. John Kline about No Child Left Behind, and how its upcoming renewal and revision is an opportunity to foster student input in the education process.
In crafting their letter, both students drew from their experience engaging with local students. Fure-Slocum, a Sociology-Anthropology major and Educational studies concentrator, directs an after-school program focusing on college access for immigrant youth in Faribault. Welna, a History major, volunteers as a teaching assistant in a college access program for low-income and Latino youth in Northfield.
Out of 26 entrants from colleges across the country, their letter was chosen as one of five finalists. They will present their policy research at the Debating for Democracy conference at Pace University in New York City on March 24th. Their trip is supported through funding from the C. Charles Jackson Leadership Fund at Carleton.
A panel of current and former legislators will evaluate the participants’ letters and presentations, awarding $3,000 to the winner and $500 to each runner-up. These grants will be used to create advocacy plans around the policy proposals.
This is Carleton’s second year as member institution of Project Pericles, a consortium of 29 colleges committed to civic engagement. Carleton students also advanced to the D4D finalist stage last year, marking a strong start to the college’s participation the program. Last year’s participants—Dan Levy, Charlotte Turovsky, and Logan Nash—wrote to Sen. Amy Klobuchar about holistic reforms to federal surface transportation policy.