Roosevelt Institute Campus Network

Nice article on the excellent work of UGA students beyond the classroom as part of the Roosevelt Institute, learning as they influence broader public policies:

The Roosevelt Institute Campus Network, founded in 2004, is a national organization that strives to uphold the values cast into the public discourse by Franklin, Eleanor and Theodore Roosevelt and to promote the next generation of leaders through progressive policy. In 2006, Rhodes Scholar Deep Shah (international affairs and genetics) and Gabriel Allen co-founded the UGA chapter of the student-run think tank that teaches its members how to approach problems and create policy analyses.

In 2014 UGA was named Chapter of the Year for the Roosevelt network, which has 115-plus chapters in 38 states with more than 10,000 members.

UGA's Roosevelt students have presented their white papers in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and around the world. Congressmen and government officials have attended Roosevelt-sponsored symposiums on UGA's campus.

This spring the ideas of eight UGA students were published in the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network's 2015 edition of 10 Ideas, an undergraduate policy journal series. Two of the proposals — "Addressing Sexual Assault at the University of Georgia" by Cali Callaway (cognitive science and Latin) and "Fighting Pain with Pills: Overprescribing and the Opioid Addiction Epidemic" by Erin Hollander (double major in biochemistry and molecular biology, and genetics) — were selected as nominees for Policy of the Year, placing them among the best of the best student-generated policy ideas in 2015.

Outstanding students already creating an impact on society beyond thier own, personal opportunities. It returns us to the point often hit upon here, that UGA students are going to be successful in thier professional careers - the question is what will they do beyond that? This is not a presumptuous expectation, and indeed you could say it already characterizes a great many of the students that come here - that are attracted to UGA. To be a place where people foster greater ambitions, broader than their own individual experience, is to be a platform for a better society, a campus where future leaders germinate, where hearts and critical thinking coalesce. This could be one future of higher education, a return to the past but harnessed to all of the greatest intellectual firepower of the present. Congratulations to Hollander and Calloway on their nominations for Policy of the Year.