Sophomores Eva Goldstein, Meghan Lynch and Alicia Rabideau wrote to Maine Gov. Paul LePage urging that he reconsider his stance on public assistance to legal noncitizens.

Based on their advocacy for public assistance to legal non-citizens, an issue much in the news in Maine, two ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College sophomores are among the 55 student leaders and activists who will travel to New York City to participate in the Debating for Democracy National Conference.

Meghan Lynch of Scarborough, Maine, and Ali Rabideau of Natick, Massachusetts, are attending the conference from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. With a third sophomore, Eva Goldstein of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, the pair wrote and submitted to Maine Gov. Paul LePage a letter advocating for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and General Assistance Benefits for noncitizens.

The conference takes place March 19-20 at Eugene Lang College at The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City, and is made possible through support from the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.

The D4D National Conference is organized by Project Pericles, a consortium of colleges and universities committed to including social responsibility and participatory citizenship as essential elements of their educational programs. The conference features panels and workshops that focus on how students can take effective action on critical public policy issues.

At the conference, Lynch and Rabideau will represent ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in a mock Legislative Hearing. (No more than two students can represent a given team in the hearing.) The hearing is an opportunity for teams from different Periclean schools to compete for $5,000 in prize money that they can use to develop advocacy and educational campaigns around their issues.

This is the second year that students from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ have participated in the Legislative Hearing.

Prior to the conference, more than 75 students from Periclean institutions around the country submitted “Letters to an Elected Official” regarding issues they are passionate about. From this pool of submissions, five were selected to compete at the Legislative Hearing. These letters have proposed innovative solutions on issues ranging from arms trade to living wages, to local farms and food, to reporting of sexual assault in the military.

In their letter, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ team wrote: “In this letter, the authors encourage Governor Paul LePage to re-evaluate his biennial budget proposal in which he prohibits the allocation of General Assistance and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to legal noncitizens.

“This directly impacts Maine’s asylum-seekers, who are not allowed to work and rely heavily on these financial services while seeking refuge. We see this legislation as a public condemnation of asylum-seekers that further deters immigration from a state that so desperately needs it.”

Teams will present their public policy recommendations to a panel of former public officials including U.S. Rep. Thomas Downey (D-N.Y.) and New York City judge Edwina Richardson-Mendelson.

Jessica Nichols ’15.

Two ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ sophomores are among finalists in a letter-writing competition designed to teach college students effective advocacy.

Jessica Nichols of Lincoln, Mass., and Kate Paladin of Palo Alto, Calif., wrote and sent a letter to U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat representing Maine’s 2nd District, expressing concern about proposals to pipe tar-sands oil through Maine.

The pair entered the letter in the Letters to an Elected Official program operated by , a national not-for-profit organization that promotes the teaching of social responsibility and participatory citizenship at the college level.

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ team and student pairs from four other schools will present and defend their letters at a mock legislative hearing that’s part of the 2013 Debating for Democracy National Conference, to be held March 21-22 at The New School for Liberal Arts, New York City.

Kate Paladin ’15.

Also attending the event as ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ delegates to the conference are two first-year students, Alexandra Morrow of Lebanon, Maine, and Dana Cohen-Kaplan of Newton, Mass.

“We’re delighted that Jess and Kate have been named finalists,” says Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, the office that administers the college’s curricular and volunteer activities in the community.

“ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has a strong tradition of equipping students for informed civic action, and Jess and Kate’s well-researched and compellingly written letter is an excellent example of such action.”

The other finalist teams come from Berea, Carleton and Swarthmore colleges and Chatham University. At the March 21 legislative hearing, one team will be selected as the winning team and will receive $3,000 to develop an advocacy campaign related to the issue they wrote about.

The four finalist teams will each receive a $500 award also for use in developing an advocacy campaign.

The issues that the other semi-finalists wrote about were:

• the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program;
• the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994;
• gender equity in the Pennsylvania Math-Engineering-Science Achievement Initiative;
• and parental notification language in Pennsylvania abortion control legislation.

Students from schools affiliated with Project Pericles sent 57 letters to more than 100 elected officials throughout the United States, proposing innovative ideas on issues ranging from gun control to aerial drones to Alzheimer’s disease. Among other criteria, the letters were judged on the quality of policy analysis and research represented, and clarity of presentation.

This year’s panel of former government officials who will assess the letters and the students’ cases for them includes U.S. Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Penn.); U.S. Rep. Thomas Downey (D-N.Y.); Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke; and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Constance Berry Newman, a member of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ class of 1956.

Founded in 2001 by philanthropist Eugene M. Lang, Project Pericles works directly with its member institutions, such as ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, as they individually and collaboratively develop model civic engagement programs in their classrooms, on their campuses and in their communities.

A school popular with students committed to social justice, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ presents a daylong training program in organizing and advocacy skills starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 3, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Open to the public, the six-hour D4D on the Road Workshop will be led by the Center for Progressive Leadership. CPL is a national, nonpartisan political training institute that develops diverse leaders who can effectively advance political and policy change.

The event is co-sponsored by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and Project Pericles, and is funded by The Henry Luce Foundation. Due to space limitations, attendance is by registration only.

This interactive workshop for students, faculty, administrators, alumni and community leaders will impart concrete tools for successful action, including values-based messaging, analyzing root causes, identifying targets and tactics, and strategic planning.

Participants will identify new strategies for making change on a particular issue or cause, practice developing and delivering an effective advocacy message, and build relationships to support and sustain their work.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is one of 12 colleges offering the training this year. Since 2004, CPL and the CPL Action Network have trained more than 5,000 diverse leaders through these intensive programs.

Project Pericles is a nonprofit organization that encourages and facilitates commitments by colleges and universities to include social responsibility and participatory citizenship as essential elements of their educational programs.

Founded in 2001 by philanthropist Eugene M. Lang, Project Pericles works directly with its member institutions as they individually and collaboratively develop model civic engagement programs in their classrooms, on their campuses, and in their communities.