Civic Leadership Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana ChampaignNew Page
The 2007 Civic Leadership Fellows
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Jacer Aguilar was born in Venezuela and has lived in the United State for over thirteen years. She is fluent in Spanish and English competent in French. She is a junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in Political Science with a minor in History. She is involved in various organizations including serving as the President of Minorities In Political Science and Vice President of Pi Sigma Alpha. Her leadership experience also includes being a residential advisor.
This past summer she participated in the Ronald McNair Program, which involved doing researched on immigration trends of Venezuelans in the U.S. She also participated in the NASPA Undergraduate Fellowship Program, where she was able to work with various issues pertaining La Casa Cultural Latina and to develop her understanding of issues affecting the Latino Community. She also clerked at a law firm in Chicago.
Although she does not have specific career goals at this point her interests lie in the area of research, law, politics and community service. She likes to spend time with family and friends and swimming [top]
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Renee Chacko of Carol Stream, IL will graduate from Illinois with a double major in Political Science and English. She is currently pursuing her interest in campaigns and elections by researching on the visibility and engagement of Asian Americans in civic life using an intersectional analysis. A former summer intern for the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., she has worked to promote constituency-related activities with a proactive, issues-based program. Renee has recently been elected to represent the Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus of the College Democrats of America as the National Vice-Chair and hopes to encourage more college students to be involved in policy making and politics. In her time at the university she has also enjoyed serving on Intervarsity Christian Fellowship’s leadership team, working on various Illinois campaigns and covering state budget and capitol bill issues for The Daily Illini. [top]
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Leslie Cornell is from Springfield and is currently a junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is serving as President of the Illini Union Board where she previously served as Producer of Musicals. In addition, she is a student member on the Subcommittee for Undergraduate Student Conduct and the Tenant Union Advisory Board. She has dabbled in web design and programming as a UIUC French Film Festival Intern, and Undergraduate Assistant to the Director of Education and Training at NCSA and as a Web Assistant at AOCS, an international, non-profit based in Urbana. She is majoring in Media Studies with minors in Political Science and Business. [top]
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Ben Dobbins hails from Springfield, Illinois where worked as a senate page for the 94th and 95th Illinois General Assembly. The third generation in his family to attend Illinois, Dobbins will graduate in two and a half years as a Chancellor Scholar in Mathematics and Economics. Pursuing his interests in public policy, Dobbins has researched the economic effects of European emigration through the MENA Project winning him the Rivers Scholarship from the Department of Economics. His involvement on campus includes (but is not limited to) being vice president of Pi Kappa Phi, Men's social Fraternity and serving as an elected senator to the Illinois Student Senate where he sits on the Government Affairs Committee. In the past year, he has traded futures as an intern at the Chicago Board of trade, studied abroad in Rome, and worked in Ecuador on a self-developed volunteer projected. [top]
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Emily Henkels is from Arlington Heights, Illinois. Emily is majoring in Anthropology and in Gender and Women’s Studies. She was selected to intern with Ethos, a journal for psychological anthropology and recently went on an archaeological dig in Hierakonpolis, Egypt. Emily has been involved actively in the Anthropology Department and has held leadership positions in its undergraduate organization. Emily works as Multicultural Advocate in the University’s residence halls. She also has gained leadership experience through her involvement in groups like Amnesty International. These experiences have developed a keen interest in social justice issues. Through the Civic Leadership Program, Emily hopes to learn ways to create positive change in both the local and global community, particularly with regard to human rights and individual liberty. [top]
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Michael Murray is 22 years old and resides in the town of Schaumburg, IL. He is a senior currently enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His major is political science, with economics and communications as additional fields of academic concentration. His cumulative GPA is a 3.8. He graduated a semester early in December 2008 at which point he began working on his Masters Degree in Political Science as a graduate Fellow in the Civic Leadership Program. After graduate school, he plans on attending law school with the hopes of entering the legal profession.
Mike’s true passion is politics. He believes in individual freedom and personal responsibility, but he also believes that the government has a responsibility to ensure the welfare of its citizens. The passion he has for politics motivated him to enroll in the Illinois in Washington Program during the spring 2007 semester. The IWP Program gave him the opportunity to work full time as a congressional intern on Capitol Hill. He worked full time for Representative Lynn Woolsey’s. While interning for Rep. Woolsey he was assigned the task of researching healthcare related issues analyzing legislation and healthcare reform proposals that would establish universal health care coverage. [top] |
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Crystal Olsen is currently double majoring in Political Science and Speech Communication. Her preferred areas of study are media and modern domestic politics, as well as classical political history, theory, and rhetoric. She is currently working as a research assistant to Michael Cheney, senior fellow at the Institute for Government and Public Affairs, with whom she is developing an electoral index and investigating the effects of new media on the current presidential race. Crystal has interned with the Obama for America presidential campaign, U.S. Senator Durbin’s Springfield office, the Illinois Department of Revenue, and worked as a page in the Illinois State Senate. Since coming to campus, Crystal has been very active at the University and is currently serving as the Media Director for Students for Barack Obama. She also served on the Illinois Student Senate as a Senator from LAS, working closely with its Governmental Affairs Committee which acts as the liaison between the student representatives and government entities. Beyond her studies and extra curriculars, Crystal enjoys art 'especially impressionist paintings and art deco prints' music, and being outdoors [top]
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Sandra Pierzchala is a political science and history major from Northbrook, Illinois. She was born in Munich, Germany and immigrated to the United States as a baby. Sandra has been Polish folk dancing for the past five years with the Wici Song and Dance Company. Her dance talents helped her perform at the University’s annual Culture Shock with Polish Club Zagloba, an organization for which she served as Vice President. Sandra also sits on the executive board of College Democrats and serves as a volunteer at Crisis Nursery and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Sandra has also worked on internships with State Representative Naomi Jakobsson and Senator Barack Obama. In 2007 Sandra was chosen to participate in the Conference of Women Legislator’s Second Annual NEW Leadership Illinois Conference, which aims at encouraging women’s participation in public service. She has worked for Registered Student Organizations for the past three years. This year, she is an LAS Learning Leader and intern for the European Union Center. [top]
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