News and Events

This fall, the Gephardt Institute launched #MyFirstElection, a storytelling campaign that shares individuals’ experience engaging in the U.S. 2020 presidential election. Posting a series of short videos on our Facebook and Instagram social media accounts, we aimed to address any uncertainties that first-time voters may have been feeling toward the election. Featured stories shared other […]

In preparation for Election Day, the Gephardt Institute and our campus partners mobilized efforts to register voters, educate voters, and ensure voters make their voices heard. Suffrage is at the core of U.S. democracy, but for the international student body of Washington University, civic engagement is still possible outside the ballot box. International students comprise […]

By Diane Toroian Keaggy  • March 15, 2019 Originally featured in The Source Washington University in St. Louis has been recognized, for the second time, as a “Voter-Friendly Campus” by the Campus Vote Project and NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.  The Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, through its comprehensive Engage Democracy initiative, increased voter […]

By Leslie Gibson McCarthy  • October 28, 2020 Originally published in The Source Andrew Whitaker has spent his undergraduate career at Washington University in St. Louis giving back. A biomedical engineering major at the McKelvey School of Engineering, he has danced and played with kids who have cerebral palsy so they can put on a dance recital through Dance […]

With involvement in Civic Scholars, WashU Undergraduate and Graduate Workers’ Union (WUGWU), Asian and Pacific Islanders Demanding Justice (APIDJ), and Abolish WUPD, senior Jessica Yu is no stranger to student activism. In high school, she got involved in a community organization for Asian youth, which exposed her to social justice and community-centered initiatives. As these […]

With a truncated Fall term due to the pandemic, the academic term was devoid of the coveted annual Fall Break. Nevertheless, the Civic Scholars Program continued to provide current cohort members with a virtual immersive experience geared toward learning more about housing security and land use in the greater St. Louis region. Civic Scholars had […]