Civic Engagement
Part of Kayla's graduate assistantship duties include being club secretary for MTSU's American Democracy Project, a student organization dedicated to promoting civic education and engagement on campus. ADP holds several events throughout the year, including the university's annual Constitution Week and Constitution Day Guest Lecture, MTSU's Party at the Polls on Election Day, and semester-long voter registration drives, just to name a few. For her work at MTSU, Kayla was one of 175 students recognized nationally by the ALL IN Challenge as part of their 2023 Student Voting Honor Roll, and helped secure the top prize for MTSU in the Tennessee Secretary of State's College Voter Registration Competition.
As secretary of ADP, Kayla also helped organize the Tennessee Campus Civic Summit in 2022 and 2023, a state-wide gathering of Tennessee colleges and universities that are part of the Tennessee Campus Democracy Network. The Tennessee Campus Democracy Network (TCDN) promotes nonpartisan civic learning and engagement on campuses throughout the state and holds an annual Tennessee Campus Civic Summit to inspire students and academic leaders to become more involved in local, state, and national elections.
Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Meeting (CLDE) 2023
In June of 2023, Kayla attended the Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts. She and her team presented “Inspiring Us, Compelling Us: Historic Tennessee Women's Stories Push Students to Action.”
The goal of their presentation was to share with other schools what drives us at MTSU to do voter registration and get-out-the-vote work on our campus, as well as push for increased civic learning across all disciplines at our university. The team used the work of Tennesseans who have steadfastly fought, in the past and in the present day, to increase and open up voting in Tennessee.
175 college students were selected for the second annual ALL IN Challenge Student Voting Honor Roll. Kayla was selected to represent Middle Tennessee State University on the 2023 Honor Roll.
ALL IN’s Student Voting Honor Roll recognizes college students at participating campuses who have gone above and beyond to advance nonpartisan student voter registration, education and turnout efforts in their communities.
Tennessee Campus Civic Summit
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The Middle Tennessee session of the 2023 Tennessee Statewide Campus Civic Summit met in person at Vanderbilt University, Friday March 24th. The 2023 summit theme was "Active Citizenship." Active Citizenship programming included in-person speakers and activities, virtual collaborations across the state, and action planning with student leaders throughout Middle Tennessee. Five individual Middle Tennessee colleges and universities sent over sixty students and faculty as representatives to the summit.
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Kayla played an integral part in the Middle Tennessee regional session's planning committee, and was the lead student organizer from MTSU on the team. She also served as the moderator for the Tennessee campus student panel.
