What a semester it has been!

During the past three months, students across Arizona and Nevada fiercely thought outside of the box to create voting movements that would go viral. These students represent a national effort organized by CEEP’s Fellowship program. Between Arizona and Nevada, twelve students took the challenge to do something beyond themselves to get involved in this past election cycle. This effort resembles the nationwide movement of young people turning out at unprecedented levels. 

All twelve of these Fellows are moved by the importance of this election and civic engagement and thought critically about how they could share this passion with their peers. During their fellowship, the Fellows met regularly with their campus advisor and CEEP staff to explore ideas and expand them out into movements in their respective campus communities. 

Each Fellow reflected on what can create ripples of change on their campus. These ripples took many forms—all the way from social media posts to a petition to get Election Day as a campus holiday. 

Arizona Fellows Adriana & Luis are students at Cochise College in Sierra Vista, Arizona. These two Fellows partnered up to broaden their reach for a consistent and effective effort on their campus. They hosted a virtual event and got students and faculty to attend. They also acted as effective community voting experts, ready to address the questions from their audience. 

Estela is a student at Prescott College and is a returning CEEP Fellow. She has been working hard since the summer to expand her messaging for this fellowship to the broader Prescott community. In addition to her work with CEEP being highlighted in her campus newsletter, she was also featured in the Chronicles of Higher Education. 

Sarah is a student at Scottsdale Community College and has worked hard to ensure everyone on her campus has the opportunity to vote. For GOTV she has been working hard all cycle to release a Video PSA, send campus-wide emails with voting & polling information, and posting social media posts with the same info & CEEP’s non-partisan guides. 

Ben Grimm is a student at the University of Arizona, whose aim was to be a resource for his campus community and hosted two town hall events to address student questions about voting. To effectively expose himself as a campus resource, Ben spent considerable time reaching out to student clubs, school administration and student government. 

Vi and Anusha represented Arizona State University and focused their efforts on underrepresented populations. Vi partnered with the Asian American/Pacific Islander community and in particular with the Vietnamese Student Association. Anusha created a complete AZ elections guide. 

Maggie and Fernanda of Truckee Meadows Community College in Nevada thought outside of the box for all of their events, which can be highlighted in their final event, which was a costume contest where participants received voting information and were entered to win a prize for the best costume. 

Raeyan Goff of The University of Nevada, Las Vegas embraced technology with her legacy project, which was to compile voting information and go through the lengthy process of approval to permanently keep the information on her campus’s website. 

Overall, each Fellow in Arizona and Nevada successfully took on the challenge of contributing to the national momentum to pave a new America where this critical age group is well represented. This momentum is sure to leave a lasting change to the fellows themselves and their campus community as we know individuals who vote and participate when they are young tend to continue.