Strong democracies depend on informed, engaged citizens—and meaningful civic engagement begins on campus. This summer, 14 Wesleyan students are serving as Political Action Initiative Fellows, working together to develop and implement Wesleyan’s nonpartisan Democratic Engagement Action Plan. Over the next two years, this plan will guide the University’s efforts to strengthen civic learning, increase voter participation, and foster meaningful, year-round engagement in democracy across the Wesleyan community. Throughout this series, we’ll introduce each of our fellows, highlighting their backgrounds, interests, and the unique perspectives they bring to this important initiative.
Sarah Toolan’29
Sarah is from Glastonbury, CT, and a prospective Molecular Biology & Biochemistry and Government Major. She is passionate about healthcare, education, and civic engagement. On campus, Sarah is a member of the Legacy Project, the Caribbean Student Association, Wes Women in STEM, the Foster Connection, and the Student of Color Fashion Show Committee.
Sarah’s interest in civic and political engagement comes from her desire to ensure that basic human rights are met and that everyone is treated with respect and dignity. This requires avenues for people to voice their opinions and play a role in creating change. She loves working with all types of people, from children to older adults, to hear from diverse perspectives and learn about pressing issues in her community.
Through the Democracy250 program, Sarah would like to increase her knowledge of civic engagement efforts at Wesleyan, as well as other universities across the United States, through conversations with her peers and informative presentations. This includes actions taken in the past and ideas to further strengthen democratic action in the present and future. Additionally, Sarah would like to play a more active role in civic engagement on campus through research, outreach, and planning, looking for creative ways to get a broader range of students involved.
Elana Hartley’28
Elana is from San Mateo, CA and a College of Social Studies major. At Wes, she serves on the WSA, plays club soccer, and has TA’d a few different classes, including the high school course Civics, Citizenship, and the American Imagination. Along with her work as a Political Action Initiative fellow, Elana is interning in a DA’s office and spending her summer chasing sunsets, volunteering, and watching old movies and Netflix originals.
Elana believes that our democracy is strongest when every citizen is engaged and informed. She hopes this work helps more people feel involved in their community and represented by their government. Elana is excited to learn how to balance thoughtful consideration with decisive action. She’ll be studying abroad in Prague this Fall and is excited to help lay the foundation for this civic engagement plan at Wesleyan not only for now, but for years to come.
Lily Turner’27
Lily is a rising senior majoring in Government and American Studies, originally from Seattle. Her interests center around journalism and political advocacy. Lily has been passionate about audio journalism since high school, when she started working for her local NPR affiliate KUOW, and that love has carried her into all forms of storytelling, audio, and music.
Lily’s interest in civic and political engagement has been shaped by her work in journalism, where she has had the opportunity to engage with her community and see the ways in which local policy shapes everyday life. Reporting has been her main mode of civic engagement, work that Lily see as fundamentally important to accountability and democratic participation.
This summer Lily hopes to create media that increases voting accessibility and education by practicing her audio and video editing skills. She also look forward to learning from her fellow participants.
Thaddaeus Rios’28
Thaddaeus grew up in Bluffton, South Carolina, with a large family of two great parents, three sisters, two brothers, and quite a few cats and dogs. He frequently reads, watches soccer highlights (look up Adel Taraabt), and plays a lot of different sports, but he’s always loved playing soccer any time he can, especially with his girlfriend and siblings. Thaddaeus is excited to be a Political Action Initiative Fellow and optimistic about the cohort’s work.
Currently, Thaddaeus is at the U.S. Treasury in Washington, but his passion for civic and political engagement certainly did not grow from an interest in economics. Coming from a low-income household of eight in rural South Carolina, he recognizes local, statewide, and national organizations as absolute necessities for the well-being and survival of South Carolinians in serious financial distress. Thaddaeus truly believes that his hometown’s food pantry, Bluffton Self-Help, represents a spirit of civic service that was further cultivated by his loving parents, both public servants themselves. He is proud to say that his professional experience as well as Wesleyan coursework both reflect this creed.
Thaddaeus feels that his personal goals in participating in this particular Democracy250 program must largely align with the specific goals given to the entire cohort of PAI fellows. As the “PAI Summer Fellowship Acceptance Letter” states: “Political Action Initiative Fellows will work closely and collaboratively with Allbritton Center staff and each other to develop and implement Wesleyan’s nonpartisan democratic engagement action plan.” Thaddaeus feels that he must remember this specific mission statement in order to best contribute to Wesleyan’s Democracy250 footprint. He believes that this cohort is especially forward-thinking in their investigation of past Wesleyan action plans and in their ability to build upon their successes. In terms of his learning process, Thaddaeus truly believes that all fellows will be able to passively learn about the working processes behind the creation of an effective action plan. And of course, he also have faith that this fellowship will help him expand his personal commitments to good hard work and applicable research.
Ameya Ahuja’27
Ameya is a rising senior from New York City and a College of Social Studies major with an affinity for History and storytelling. Her primary non-academic passion is classical Indian dance, which she has been training in since she was five years old. Some other things Ameya loves are art museums, coffee, running, and ice cream.
Ameya believes that as college students living in the United States, our teenage and young adult years have been riddled with tumultuous political tensions and unprecedented global events. Growing up, it felt impossible for her to ignore the news when the people around her seemed to be having such emotional reactions to current events. What started as a news reading habit in high school grew into her passion for politics, and thus her academic journey at Wesleyan. Civic engagement and civil society are the backbone of democracy, a fact which Ameya has not only learned from political scientists but also observed as an engaged citizen. This fact remains true, regardless of political parties or belief systems. She is excited to be working with a non-partisan initiative focused on maintaining democracy and promoting engagement.
Ameya’s political engagement has occurred somewhat removed from Wesleyan and Middletown. She hopes that Democracy250 will be an attempt to better understand her peers and their perspectives on democracy. Ameya believes that open conversation is a mechanism for progress and hopes that this initiative will provide the space for that.
Lila Greenberg’27
Lila is from Fairfield, Connecticut. She loves talking to anyone who is involved in civic engagement and/or political action whether they have a lot of experience in the field or none at all.
Lila has been interested in politics from a young age. This interest was further cultivated by teachers who taught her that she had access to the tools needed to make a difference in her community. She strongly believes that democracy operates best when it is intentionally made accessible, transparent, and responsive to the people it serves.
Through her participation in the Democracy250, Lila hopes to ensure technical accessibility to voter-facing materials in the state of Maryland and also track political engagement at Wesleyan to target possible untapped networks of student involvement. The Maryland State Board of Elections has afforded her the unique opportunity to understand the behind-the-scenes efforts that go into a secure non-partisan election cycle.
Allegra Kunney’27
Allegra is a San Francisco native and enjoys being in the water, cooking, and constitutional law. She is a Government and Psychology major and a rising senior. She is also a middle sibling, which is an important foundation for her interest in constitutional checks and balances.
Growing up as a young girl observing the United States becoming increasingly polarized made her realize just how precarious the United States’ freedom really is. Allegra’s interest in governance was also sparked by her grandfather’s escape from a dictatorship, where he found refuge in America. His experience fostered a deep love for U.S. democracy — a legacy that, paired with her coursework in political institutions and U.S. national security, has cemented her own commitment to economic fairness and the preservation of democratic norms.
Allegra hopes to better understand how political leaders have promoted civic engagement in Middletown and find ways to increase collaboration between the campus and the wider community. She really hope to engage parts of the Wesleyan campus that feel disconnected from or disinterested in elections and voting, as well as expand her own civic involvement beyond coursework and elections.
Eli Liedtka’27
Eli is a rising senior majoring in government and history with a minor in global engagement. He is from Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, a suburb just outside of Philadelphia. Outside of the fellowship, Eli is a captain on the track team, a senior class officer, and a member of a government research lab. He also loves reading and is currently reading several books in preparation for a senior history thesis on online right-wing radicalization.
Growing up, Eli had the chance to interact with people from a myriad of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, which exposed him to some of the fundamental injustices that many Americans face. As a result, he has always tried to be well-informed and well-read on politics and social issues. That dedication to civic engagement has only deepened as a result of his studies in government and history at Wesleyan. Eli’s experiences in childhood and education at Wesleyan culminated in his choice last summer to live in DC and work for a small human rights NGO, where he got a firsthand look at the minutia of governance, which simultaneously cemented his commitment to democratic engagement as well as gave him a better understanding of some of the inequities that still pervade our republic. In a world where civil liberties are increasingly under threat, effective democratic engagement and outreach are of the utmost importance, and Eli hopes that through this fellowship, he can be a part of that engagement!
Eli hopes to be part of a group that can change how Wesleyan interacts with the wider Middletown community. He believes that Wesleyan students have been a solely extractive force in the community for too long, and it is past time that they organized to give back to their neighbors. This initiative is an excellent first step in fostering a campus-wide commitment to civic and democratic engagement, and he hope to be able to contribute to that change.