News and Events: 2021-22
Maia Lefferman '25 connects Brandeis University's VoteDeis Coalition, supported by ENACT, with college-based nonpartisan voter engagement efforts in greater Boston through her representation and work with Boston Votes. During the past few years, Boston Votes has held summits to gather the students, faculty and staff across the coalition to continue strengthening student and campus voter participation efforts.
April 21, 2022
During the 2022 Spring semester, Professor Adam Myers and students from his Public Analysis and Advocacy course visited Rhode Island State House. Students were able to meet and learn from State Rep. Rebecca Kislak as well as develop a greater understanding of public policy and advocacy at the State level. Professor Myers is a part of the Political Science Department at Providence College.
February 1, 2022
Ethics Center Director Melissa Stimell, with Brandeis graduate student Kaitie Chakoian and Brandeis alum Charlotte Powley, PhD, surveyed and interviewed alumni from 10 years of the Brandeis ENACT Advocacy for Policy Change course (LGLS 161b), which was developed by Stimell and has been taught by her since 2011.
This course is the model for the Ethics Center's national, 50-state program ENACT: The Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation.
The results from this ENACT Pilot Evaluation Report shows the impact of Ethics Center's ENACT course on alumni civic engagement and career trajectories.
Among the conclusions:
ENACT alumni have high levels of political efficacy. They feel well-qualified to engage with the political process and believe that doing so can have an impact on political outcomes. As a result, they are much more civically engaged than the average U.S. resident. They vote at substantially higher rates and engage in various other ways. ENACT alumni retain the knowledge they learned in the class about the political process, even years after completing it. They also retain skills (speaking and writing clearly, working effectively with others, and evaluating data sources) that have helped them in their professional work — whether that work is policy-related or completely unrelated. In addition to these skills, ENACT alumni credit the networks they developed and the mentorship of ENACT faculty with the trajectories their careers have taken since leaving Brandeis.
January 24, 2022
"Student-to-Student Support: The ENACT Student Delegates," ENACT Student Delegates Elaina Pevide ’20 and Alison Cantor ’22 explore new ways of strengthening ties between ENACT classes.
January 1, 2022
Voter Participation Earns Brandeis National Gold Seal Recognition
Seventy percent of Brandeis University students who were eligible voted in the 2020 presidential election, earning the University a Gold Seal from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, a national, nonpartisan initiative of Civic Nation, which strives for a more inclusive democracy. The work to achieve this milestone – an increase of 13 percent from the previous presidential election – was spearheaded by the VoteDeis Campus Coalition, organized by Leigh Swigart and David Weinstein of the Ethics Center in collaboration with the Office of the Dean of Students. VoteDeis is a nonpartisan initiative that since 2018 has brought together students, staff and faculty to coordinate, plan, and share information and resources for voter registration and participation.
ENACT: The Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation expands to all 50 states with its first virtual institute.