Organizers welcome area college students, young adults to SU campus to explore civic engagement ideas and models
The White House Young America Series (WHYAS) offers a special forum in which issues critical to young Americans in the 21st century can be explored and ideas shared for interacting and developing solutions. The nationwide series is coming to Central New York on Wednesday, April 18, from 6-9 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse 3 on the Syracuse University campus.
One of 17 regional WHYAS events on college campuses across the country this spring, the CNY event is organized by SU, the SU Student Association, the Cornell University Student Assembly and Imagining America: Artists & Scholars in Public Life, in association with the White House Office of Public Engagement and the U.S. Department of Education Office of Communications and Outreach.
It will showcase how student civic engagement can change—and in fact is changing—America for the better. Included will be student presenters on the themes of “Inclusive Urban Education,” “Environmental Sustainability” and “The Arts & Humanities as Catalysts for Change”; an open dialogue session; and a panel discussion on solutions.
Participants are encouraged to engage in person and online. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Those who plan to attend are asked to RSVP. Complimentary parking is available in the University Avenue Garage (drivers should inform the attendant that they are attending the WHYAS event).
The event will be webstreamed live at www.syr.edu/whitehouse, and participants can follow—and contribute to—the discussion on Twitter by using the hashtag #WHatSU.
Full details about the program are available at www.syr.edu/whitehouse.
The WHYAS series is designed to connect White House Administration officials with issues facing young adults and the student-driven ideas and solutions for enacting change. Officials from the White House Office of Public Engagement and the U.S. Department of Education will attend the event at SU.
Event organizers hope that a broad range of participants will leave the discussion with a new understanding on how true engagement—from volunteering, to being a student leader, to investing time and energy into a community or cause—can enable a generation to enact community and global change. The forum will also highlight the models and programs that are making a difference in our community, through involvement by students in Central New York.
“As the youth of America, we have a unique opportunity to voice our concerns and speak about important issues we face today in America,” says Dylan Lustig, a sophomore international relations and economics double-major at SU and president of the SU Student Association. “We really have the chance to continue to make change as the next up-and-coming generation.”
“I am very enthusiastic about the opportunity to discuss how our generation can bring about change with so many amazing young Americans in one room,” says Natalie Raps, a senior government major and theatre arts minor at Cornell and president of the Cornell Student Assembly. “This is our chance to show our peers, our community and our government that we are the change we can believe in.”
