Campaign College: Fall 2008

On Saturday, September 13^th, the Women & Politics Institute and Women’s Initiative hosted our third annual Campaign College. The program was great. We started off the day with Susannah Shakow, President of Running Start, a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring young women and girls to run for political office. Susannah spoke about the importance of women running for office; how changing the makeup of a governing body changes what issues are discussed and how new solutions are discovered.

Then the participants heard from Brianne Kruger Nadeau, AU alumna and Commissioner of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1B05 here in DC. Brianne spoke about her success running for political office at such a young age. She shared her experience from her own campaign and encouraged the participants to run for public office..

We also heard from Sarah Flowers, Vice President at Laguens Kully Klose Partners, and Democratic Co-Chair of the Women & Politics Institute’s Young Women Leaders Board. Sarah spoke about the importance of message and how to properly construct a winning message. She also discussed the unique challenges women face when running for office, especially in the media, and ways to overcome them.

Many students participated a session that helped them to qualify to run for Student Government office. They learned the ins and outs of the AU student campaign regulations and all of the positions available during this Fall 2008 AU Student Government election cycle. Others heard from student leaders of clubs and organizations such as the Black Student Alliance, AU Queers and Allies, the Alpha Phi Omega Nation Service Fraternity and the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity.

Students also had the opportunity to listen to what their peers had to say about running for office in Student Government here at AU. Carrie Johnson, Kristian Hoyradt, Emily Beyer, current AU students and current or former members of AU Student Government, all having served in various positions in AUSG, provided great insight to good campaign tactics and what to do once you are in office. We also had the pleasure of hearing from Rebecca Geller, an alumna of AU and of our Washington College of Law. Rebecca Geller was one of the women responsible for the creation of Women’s Initiative as a department of Student Government.

We will be hosting another session of Campaign College in time for the Spring semester elections. Look for information at wandp.american.edu or wi.ausg.org, or email us at wandp@american.edu.