Featured Fellows: Adriana Cortes, Jason Morgan, Hali Nurnberg, Nick Savelli, and Julia Sewell

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Adriana Cortes | Jason Morgan | Hali Nurnberg | Nick Savelli | Julia Sewell

Adriana Cortes

2009 YP4 Fellow Adriana Cortes is working on the establishment of a campus leadership program, RISE.  The RISE Leadership Program will support students through critical dialogues, education, peer mentoring and leadership development. The RISE Leadership Program's primary focus is to promote and foster a safe environment for students to dialogue and to think critically about culture, politics and economic theories. This program is designed to support students in their endeavors to push the status quo at Cal State Fullerton and in their respected communities. The RISE Leadership Program will strive to provoke intellectual thought to go beyond society's constraints and to give students the skills to build a community were all could be embraced and safe. 

Currently Adriana is working to advocate for the Educational Opportunity Program and is in the beginning stages of a campaign to ensure the EOP is being run correctly and serving students in need. Additionally, she is arranging workshops for next semester around issues such as access to higher education and immigration. 

YP4: What has it been like working on your Blueprint? 

It’s a challenge; there is so much work to be done. While it’s easy to say we want to work on all the issues facing Orange County – and there are so many – it can be tough. The main challenge of my Blueprint has been starting something from the ground up while maintaining a balance with work and school. On my campus there’s no place for students to learn and understand empowerment for themselves and their community. All the leadership programs provided are very business-oriented; they offer no developmental pipeline for low income students of color, so we have to build our own. Because there’s no intentional development of low-income students of color, few take part in on-campus leadership. With RISE we’re really trying to combat this issue. It’s really challenging work but it’s necessary and the challenge makes it worthwhile and exciting! 

YP4: What do stand for?

I stand for justice and equality for any underrepresented group - whether it’s a community in the inner city or issues effecting people across the world. As a YP4 fellow what I stand for is respect and dignity for everyone, that’s what I’m here for and I see YP4 is a community of people who strive for that. 

YP4: Where do you see you’re work going? 

Next semester we’ll be focusing on a lot of education work. We know the importance of us a having holistic understanding of all the issues around access to higher education. Individuals in our club are teaming up to do specific research on a community over break – we want to understand the obstacles different communities face - and then when we come back together after break as a group we’ll have the knowledge we need to run workshops and educate other students. 

In the long term what I see RISE Leadership Program as achieving two things: one is creating leadership development opportunities for low income students of color. I want to make sure students have the opportunity to learn skills about community organizing, learn about student power and how to fight for things they need. Secondly, I want RISE to partner with the United State Student Association and make sure students at Fullerton have a voice at the national level and the ability to get involved in national, state and local politics. 

These are the two things I’m looking forward to big time. We know that we’re working towards concrete improvements within students lives and breaking the cycle of apathy and disempowerment. 

YP4: How can other fellows and alumni get involved in your work? 

If other fellows want to work together we can exchange strategies and tools, collaborate on campaigns and events. Get in touch with me!

Alumni should really stay invested in the new fellows through mentoring, emotional support, advice and even financial support. There are a lot of students who want to get involved in activism but can’t because of financial restrictions and any support from Alumni would be helpful. This is how movements are built; every movement is based on a community of people supporting each other.

Adriana Cortes | Jason Morgan | Hali Nurnberg | Nick Savelli | Julia Sewell

Jason Morgan

2009 YP4 Fellow Jason Morgan’s Blueprint is Northern Michigan University Bike-Share Program through which he set out to establish a state-of-the-art county-wide bike share program.

YP4: What do you stand for?

I stand for making a positive progressive difference in the world around me.

YP4: What has it been like working on your BP?

Although I had the idea for the program before I started my Blueprint, working through the Blueprint has helped me think through a lot of the key steps I needed to take to establish the program. It really helped me in identifying key players and lay out the structure of the program.

YP4: Where do you see your work going after your fellowship year?

As student body president I have the unique opportunity to really influence the campus through policies and programming. My Blueprint is just one aspect of a larger goal I have of making the campus more sustainable overall. Over the next months and year I’m looking to expand the bike share program even more, even beyond the campus at NMU. I’ve been talking to a lot of community members and thinking about how to expand the bike share program to the whole community surrounding NMU.

Actually, I just found out that some of my school administrators are getting calls from other schools and asking how they can set up a bike share program on their campus! There are a lot of issue around liability and other universities are now looking to NMU for support on how to deal with those and set up a bike share.

The next stage of my Blueprint is to work out whatever kinks the program had in the fall. I’m really hoping to perfect the program with a few details. The bike share has gotten great feedback from students and the community– we’ve managed to create it with minimal costs and effort and are really hoping to pull in additional funds to be able to expand it next year.

YP4: How can other fellows and alumni get involved in your work?

If there are any other fellows who are looking to establish a bike share program on their campus I’d love to support their efforts. I was surprised by the amount of leg work we needed to do and all the university departments we needed to navigate to put this program together. I can set any interested fellows up with a report of how our program operates and what it took to design it – I can share a Frequently Asked Questions sheet which can hopefully answer the important questions such as what departments to talk to, what issues came up and how we dealt with them. I would certainly be willing to help out other fellows in any way possible. [Contact Jason]

Adriana Cortes | Jason Morgan | Hali Nurnberg | Nick Savelli | Julia Sewell

Hali Nurnberg

2009 Fellow Hali Nurnberg is working through her Blueprint for Social Justice to expose the detrimental spending habit of her university, University of Arizona. Through her Blueprint Hali hopes to educate and mobilize the student body to pressure the University to divest from companies that play a role in international human rights violations.

YP4: What has it been like working on your Blueprint?

I changed my mind about my Blueprint a few times – it had been really hard for me to focus on something that would really make a difference, but at the beginning of this semester a friend of mine approached me with the divestment idea and it just made sense. It ended up that I put my BP together just a few days before the deadline.

Well, this Blueprint is really part of a national movement of fifty to sixty colleges and universities across the country. Recently, we went to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions conference at Hampshire College and got to meet with a lot of other campus leaders who are working on divestment issues. This movement is much like the divestment movements that led to the end of apartheid. At the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions conference I actually gave a presentation using the YP4 Power Map and Root Cause Tree, which lots of people from other campuses found extremely useful when beginning on such a large campaign. Those tools have been really helpful for me.

YP4: What do stand you for?

I stand for human rights and the idea that morality is relative but suffering is real. I stand for the alleviation of suffering for all people.

YP4: Where do you see you’re work going?

Our strategy has two aspects – education and lobbying. For next semester we’re planning on doing an educational event once a month with guest speakers. We’re working with the student government to try and lobby the university to eliminate some of the technologies they use that benefit companies who contribute to human rights violations but we are getting a lot of resistance from one of the colleges at U of A.

I will be graduating in May but we have other students continuing the work and I will stay on as an advisor. As far as my professional aspirations I would love to build on this work that I’m doing on campus and work with an organization like Human Rights Watch.

YP4: How can other fellows and alumni get involved in your work?

This is a national campaign so anyone on any campus can get involved! If there are any fellows who are currently in school they can run their own campaign with help from organizations like the US Campaign to End the Occupation; they have a great “Divest Now” handbook for students and fellows can also contact me if you want advice!

Adriana Cortes | Jason Morgan | Hali Nurnberg | Nick Savelli | Julia Sewell

Nick Savelli

2009 YP4 Fellow Nick Savelli is using his Blueprint for Social Justice to form a coalition of existing gender conscious agencies, organizations , activists, and artists in Tallahassee. Through this coalition Nick plans to execute large scale direct actions to bring awareness and change to many of the issues facing women and the LGBT community in Tallahassee.

YP4: What has it been like working on your Blueprint?

I’ve been working with another fellow on this, 2009 Fellow Tom Papp, and we’ve been talking to organizations to get support for the coalition. Quite a few organizations at Florida State University didn’t really want to support our efforts or collaborate with us. For example, FSU’s Victim advocates director met with us and told us that there isn’t a problem on campus and that they will never step foot in between a cop and a survivor, Men Advocating Responsible Conduct (MARC) wouldn’t even respond to us about scheduling a meeting after multiple attempts to do so. We’ve decided to go around the university and really go into the community to get this off the ground. We are working with the FSU Women’s Center and a feminist organization on campus called The F Word.

Although the Blueprint form has been helpful what’s really been most helpful to me has been working with Zach [Dryden, YP4 Fellowship Manager]. Anytime I got stuck on anything he helped me think through alternative options and tactics. The Blueprint has also been very effective because it gave us a foundation within which we were able to outline our work and goals. It also helped us streamline our vision.

YP4: What do stand you for?

I stand for the end of oppression and patriarchy and the fall of capitalism.

YP4: Where do you see you’re work going?

The coalition will really take shape next semester; we’ve been having meetings with people who are already really active and will carry the coalition. We’re hoping to launch the first action during the last two weeks of the spring semester during Stop Rape Week; a lot of organizations are already mobilizing for that week.

Some ideas: Getting 100 people to line up and hold vigil down one of the busiest streets in Tally, have everyone wearing white shirts except one in every 4 people wearing red; representing the statistic of ¼ college age women who are sexually assaulted. We would also like to do some mural work and we’re aiming at a getting a big wall at the Refuge House Thrift Store (Florida’s largest domestic violence center). Really want we want to do is streamline a bunch of people who are already working on gender equality issues. Our approach is going to be one that is a little different from the norm as this issue is more than a women’s issue; we plan to engage men specifically as we are 99% of the perpetrators of rape and sexual assault. We want our actions to start a dialogue in the community especially among men to address the unacceptable climate around rape and sexual violence.

We’re also trying to put together a Summit on campus about the reality of rape and sexual violence to get people fired up so they’re ready for the action during Stop Rape Week. We’re working to put on a training during this summit on direct action, how to have a dialogue and how to implement non violent conversations.

YP4: How can other fellows and alumni get involved in your work?

Contact me!

Adriana Cortes | Jason Morgan | Hali Nurnberg | Nick Savelli | Julia Sewell

Julia Sewell

2009 YP4 Fellow Julia Sewell’s Blueprint for Social Justice is the founding of an organization called Empowering the Multitudes through Promoting Inspiring, Real Educators (E.M.P.I.R.E.). E.M.P.I.R.E. aims to create and to provide opportunities for youth leaders and connect young people to potential speaking and performing jobs.

YP4: What has it been like working on your Blueprint?

This was an idea that I’ve had for a long time and it’s been really cool watching it come together and using the Blueprint to put all the pieces together. Right now I’m working on putting together the Board of Directors, comprised of twenty three people from around the United States and two international members. . I am also working with a promotions team on getting the word out about E.M.P.I.R.E. and in 2010 we have a goal of launching the program, reaching out to organizations for partnerships and recruiting speakers.

YP4: What do you stand for?

I stand for Youth Voice. Everything I do works to combat the issues youth face and to promote the inclusion of young people in creating change by using their voice and talents.

YP4: Where do you see you’re work going?

Going up and continuing to grow! As we become more established there are a lot of ways for people to get involved. E.M.P.I.R.E serves adults who work in young focused non for profits, we can connect them to young performers with positive social change messages.
I want E.M.P.I.R.E to be a one stop shop – this is where you’ll find positive young speakers and amazing young performers for any event or cause. We plan on hosting a lot of awareness events to connect organizations across the county with young talented people.

YP4: How can other fellows and alumni get involved in your work?

Help us spread the word! If you want to perform or take a leadership role we’re open to that! And even if you don’t want to be in those roles there are still lots of ways to support and get involved in E.M.P.I.R.E.

Check out our website or contact me!

» Nominate a college student leader for the YP4 fellowship today.

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