The Next Generation of Change-Makers

As students, you might find members of UWT’s NextGen Civic Leader Corps being honored with various fellowships and awards, presenting in front of supervisory boards, and engaging with their local elected officials or community organizations. After graduation, you’ll find these same students becoming those elected officials, founding new community organizations, and serving on the boards they once presented before.

“I think my generation really has a lot of energy and a lot of excitement for change,” said Ashley Ramirez, a NextGen student majoring in law and policy with a minor in sociology “We’re not easily discouraged. We’re taking a step forward in such a difficult time and really carving out our own path. And I really want to be part of that movement.”

Ramirez is currently working as a student lobbyist with the state legislature to advocate for her fellow students, a position that was made possible by the connections she made through the NextGen program.

Initially founded by the Volcker Alliance Next Generation Service Corps, the NextGen program has been implemented across all three UW campuses and is designed to engage students from all disciplines and majors around a shared passion for public good.

At UWT, key elements of the program include coursework from a range of civic-focused options, an experiential learning component, and quarterly participation in signature events across campuses. These requirements are intended to build a community of like-minded students and create opportunities for them to network with community leaders.

For Eamon Challinor, a computer science major and a student in the Global Honors Program, NextGen events helped him connect his technology-focused studies with civic engagement.

“My favorite event was a legislative reception where senators came to speak to NextGen students across all three UW campuses,” Challinor said. “What really stood out to me was getting to interact with the senators on a more casual level that you wouldn’t really get to otherwise, but also getting to see the different pathways they took to get into leadership. A lot of them didn’t take the traditional political science route. A lot of them came from different backgrounds, different majors, and they still ended up in this place of civic leadership. And that’s what really inspired me to stick with NextGen and really fall in love with the program.”

The interdisciplinary design of this program is one of its great strengths. Jannat Musawi, a NextGen student studying psychology and social welfare and also a Global Honors student, said she appreciated collaborating with students from various areas of study in order to generate solutions to complex issues.

“Every field is a public service field. You can serve the public with whatever you are doing,” Musawi said. “And when you have a room with people from all these different disciplines sharing their thoughts, their views, their backgrounds; it really forms this great intellectual area where they can come up with something amazing to help our community in the best way possible.”

Although these students come from various disciplines, they are unified in their desire to make positive change through civic engagement. Divya McMillin, Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation & Global Engagement, led the design of UWT’s NextGen program with broad participation from faculty, staff, students, and campus leadership. The goal was for students to not only contribute to their immediate community, but also to understand themselves in a global context.

“What makes the UWT implementation unique is that it’s housed under the Institute for Innovation and Global Engagement,” McMillin said. “There’s a dedicated focus, through co-designed major pathways, on viewing community issues through a global lens. I think it’s incredibly important for students to think of the world as their space for doing good. Their participation as civically engaged global citizens is critical.”

Additionally, the UWT program is unique in that it provides participants with a micro-credential that details their experience within the NextGen program. This faculty-reviewed micro-credential can be added to a student’s transcript or resume, and functions as a digital badge – an active, clickable accomplishment that showcases detailed descriptions of skills, mentor feedback, and experiential learning.

Ultimately, this program provides structure and opportunities for students to engage with their community, define what public good means to them, and explore collaborative solutions to societal issues. These NextGen students provide a glimpse into what the change-makers of tomorrow might look like, but this movement is deeper than the UW campuses activating these energetic learners. There are motivated global citizens across our state, our nation, and our world who inspire and become inspired by this work. The NextGen program is one of many first steps on a path toward positive global change.

“No matter what level it is, you can make a change,” Challinor said. “Even on a scale like NextGen, even at the level I’m at, I can still make changes. I can aspire to make the world a better place. And I think that’s what NextGen does – it nurtures that leadership element. Even at that starting level, it inspires you to want to make the world a better place. And eventually, that will manifest into something greater.”