USG and ConnPIRG hosted the first HuskyEngage Summit that provided students with the opportunity to voice their goals about the future of UConn. Their goal is to create a plan for the 2020 election. File Photo/The Daily Campus
The summit is an initiative started by the student organizations to encourage civic engagement among students on all UConn campuses.
The first-ever HuskyEngage Summit will be held at the University of Connecticut’s Storrs campus on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The event, hosted by UConn’s chapter of the Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG) and UConn’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG), is an empowerment program that provides students with an opportunity for skill-building, training and collaborating, to ultimately create a campus action plan for the 2020 election, ConnPIRG coordinator Emily O’Hara said.
The summit will take place on the first floor of McHugh Hall.
“It’s a chance for any student voices to be in the room and share their perspective on what the university should do going forward, especially in major election years like 2020,” O’Hara said.
Damani Douglas, USG External Affairs Committee chair and HuskyEngage co-coordinator, said the idea of the summit was kickstarted in the spring semester by USG and ConnPIRG to promote campus and civic engagement.
The summit will encourage students not only to vote but to become more involved with campus organizations every year, Douglas said.
“We want to instill in the students here that engagement goes beyond just civic engagement,” Douglas said.
The goal of the summit is to create an action plan. The plan will help UConn students and student leaders at all campuses by creating campus-specific mechanisms to encourage on-campus engagement during the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
“We want to rival the universities in our region and have an even better [campus action plan] to be an active campus and a participative campus,” O’Hara said.
The event will have multiple keynote speakers, including the president of the League of Women Voters and elected officials from the Connecticut General Assembly. USG president Priyanka Thakkar will give the opening address.
O’Hara hopes UConn students will be part of the summit because voting helps draw attention to issues that are important to the 18- to 24-year-old demographic.
“If all young people turned out to vote, we would see our issues represented and advocated for on a local, state and national level,” O’Hara said.
Douglas hopes the summit will give each student that attends a different takeaway.
“What we hope those takeaways include are ways to get their immediate friend group involved in different things on campus…and leave with a sense of awareness,” Douglas said.
If students are interested in being part of this summit, registration for the event is still open until Saturday. Lunch will be provided.
Students interested can register at uconnuecs.cvent.com/HuskyEngage19. For Storrs campus students interested in attending, the complementary code is storrs19. For regional campus students, the fee to sign up is $20. For non-UConn students, the registration fee is $37.
Daniela Luna is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at daniela.luna@uconn.edu.
