For the third year in a row, a Wagner College student team has won the national Project Pericles Debating for Democracy Letter to an Elected Official competition.
This year’s winning team consisted of Jacquline Guzman ’24, a sociology major and civic engagement minor, and Ava De La Cruz ’23, a health sciences major. Guzman and De La Cruz wrote a letter to New York State Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-NY), who represents the district in which Wagner College lies, supporting an Assembly bill ensuring that LGBTQ+ residents of long-term care facilities receive equal and culturally appropriate care and treatment. (Read their letter here.)
Sociology professor Bernadette Ludwig, faculty director of civic engagement at Wagner College and longtime liaison with Project Pericles, provided support for Guzman and De La Cruz. The students also developed a partnership with Wagner alumna Nicole Mulé ’18, senior services manager for the Staten Island Pride Center. To conclude their project, the students worked with Mulé to organize an on-campus dialogue event on Oct. 20 with Staten Island Pride Center seniors, with the goal of educating their Wagner peers about the issues facing LGBTQ+ elders.
About Project Pericles
Founded in 2001, Project Pericles is a national consortium of colleges and universities committed to including participatory citizenship and social responsibility as essential elements of their educational programs. Wagner College’s Board of Trustees voted to join Project Pericles in May 2005.
Debating for Democracy — D4D, for short — is a series of distinctive campus-based programs — including the Letter to an Elected Official competition — that represent the mission of Project Pericles in action. D4D promotes civic engagement and effective advocacy skills among a wide range of students. Students acquire the knowledge and skills they need to advance their issues and to get their messages across to elected officials, fellow students, community groups, and the media.
The D4D Letter to an Elected Official competition engages students around public policy issues, the political process, and with their elected officials. Since 2008, hundreds of teams from Periclean colleges and universities have participated in this competition.
Past competition winners
In 2021, theater performance major Andrew Kolar ’22 and Seong Gillespie ’23, a sociology major and civic engagement minor, were among the winning teams of the national Project Pericles D4D Letters to an Elected Official competition. Kolar and Gillespie’s letter, “Support and Make the For the People Act (S.R. 1) a Top Priority during the 117th Congress,” was addressed to Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.). S.R. 1 sought to expand voter registration and voting access while also addressing campaign finance and congressional redistricting issues.
In 2020, two scholars from Wagner’s Men of Color Initiative, Rajiv Redd ’23 and Ahmad Lyons ’21, participated in the letter competition with the support of government professor Cyril Ghosh. Their winning letter to Congressman Max Rose (D-Staten Island) advocated for expanding the First Step Act (H.R. 5682) to restrict mandatory minimum sentencing. In the letter, they highlighted how Black men and their communities have been disproportionately affected by mandatory minimum sentencing.
In 2014, first-year students Nada Metwally of Tottenville, Staten Island and Adrienne Datta of San Diego, Cal. won the contest for their letter to New York State Senator Diane Savino about fracking. Read more about their letter here.
