2025 ENACT Student Summit
April 22, 2025
On April 22, 2025, ENACT hosted its first ever ENACT student summit, welcoming students from ENACT classes across the country. Students and ENACT Faculty Fellows from Massachusetts to Maine to Florida to Utah joined the Zoom meeting to connect and share insights from their civic engagement journeys.
The evening was structured around individual videos submitted by students, highlighting what they found valuable and empowering in their ENACT course, for a chance to win a $500 prize. Five finalists were selected to be featured at the event.
The festivities began with Tristin Friend, University of Maine ’25, who shared a video about how his ENACT course at the University of Maine, taught by Faculty Fellow Robert Glover, helped him recognize the importance of civic engagement. He discussed Maine’s citizen initiatives and how their petitions can bring about necessary state-level reforms. His video, though brief, clearly explained the citizen petition process and its role in the state legislature, highlighting the power of a civically engaged public.
Up next was Tomas Cruz Villalvazo, University of Utah ’25, who was a student in Faculty Fellow Jennifer Seelig's ENACT course “An Introduction to Public Administration.” Tomas took a more personal approach in his video, explaining that beyond the hard skills he gained from his ENACT course, he learned the importance of taking risks. Although daunting at first, the conversations his course encouraged him to have with people in authority helped him realize how much there is to gain from stepping out of one's comfort zone.
Ava Ferrigno '27, a Brandeis University sophomore, took a similar approach to Tomas, highlighting how her ENACT course work pushed her academically and personally. In her course with Prof. Charlotte Powley, “Gender Justice, and Legislation,” Ava drew on her own experiences as a college athlete to inspire her project “Bleeding in Silence.” In her video, she called for greater awareness of and protections for menstruating athletes, ultimately crediting her ENACT course with teaching her that you don’t need to be in high positions of power to make a difference.
Touching on ENACT’s central mission, Kera Sayles, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University '26, used her video to stress that civic engagement starts with knowledge. Her ENACT course with Faculty Fellow Victor Eno taught her how to critically examine public policy which empowered her to engage with her state’s politics in a meaningful way.
The last video presented was by Alyssa Golden '26, a recipient of the ENACT Research and Advocacy Fellowship at Brandeis. She assisted Prof. Charlotte Powley in a year-long hands-on project. Alyssa shared how through that experience she learned about the immense power of storytelling to drive policy change.
After viewing all the videos, summit participants awarded Ava Ferrigno’s video the top prize. All of the videos highlighted the crucial role academic institutions can play in fostering students' engagement with advocacy and politics.
Visit the ENACT platform to see the other student summit submissions.