MappCivics. Youth Empowering in Chicago
We represent an interdisciplinary team of educators in political science, community psychology, health, and community experts committed to working towards cultivating our youth’s democratic civic virtues to help them become better citizens. Inspired by Havel’s vision of politics as a ‘never-ending effort’ to create the common good and concerned with the country’s democratic erosion and youth’s disenchantment with politics, we work towards implementing a civic engagement model that emphasizes youth capacity, connection to community, and commitments to social issues. We serve primarily low-income minority youth and start with a ground-up effort to brainstorm and investigate best practices and policy issues relevant to Chicago’s West Side.
Our objectives are threefold:
- To create spaces that generate informed and educated youth citizenry and increase youth commitment to civic and political engagement at BUILD and NLU.
- To create a space that connects university resources with a community's needs to amplify community voices and co-create civic and political educational tools.
- To create an ongoing fundable research agenda around Civic Engagement and Education embedded in community needs
Our work has been sponsored by various grants - the Growing Democracy grant from the Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs of the American Political Science Association (APSA #1502461), the Annual Seed Grant Program from the National Louis University, and the Civic and Voter Engagement Fellowships from the Pericles Project.
We have generated Podcast Episodes with community members from the Chicago area, Youth Workshops with youth on the Chicago West side, Lesson Plans for restorative youth work in a community setting, a Research Project on youth engagement, a mapping of youth-based community organizations, and a mini-conference on Lessons from the 2024 US Elections. Enjoy!
Team Members and Work Contributions
- Magda Giurcanu, PI, is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Social Sciences Department of the Undergraduate College at National Louis University, Chicago. Her research spans themes of democratization, party system development, and electoral behavior in Europe and the US. Magda wrote and presented reports regarding youth civic and political engagement, participated in youth restorative workshops, collected and analyzed youth data, and coordinated student work at NLU. She also wrote additional grants to generate new civic initiatives through the Pericles Project. She shared findings with the APSA Institute for Civically Engaged Research (as a 2024 ICER fellow at Tufts University, June 2024) and the Southern Political Science Association (Puerto Rico, January 2025).
- Edwina Hamilton is a Senior Manager of Community Partnerships, Peace & Justice Center at BUILD, Inc., Chicago. Edwina helped facilitate NLU connections to BUILD, organized introductory meetings for our restorative workshops, and oversaw youth attendance and participation.
- Judah Viola is a Professor at the College of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at National Louis University, Chicago. Judah helped our team access NLU resources to support our efforts.
- Joe Rice, MA, is an instructor in the Undergraduate College at National Louis University and DePaul University, Chicago. Joe is a mental health professional, and he designed and facilitated youth restorative workshops at BUILD.
National Louis University students
- Joyce Madzinga is a doctoral student in the College of Education working on issues of Disability and Equity. Joyce worked on collecting information on community-based organizations in the Chicago area.
- Samantha Padilla is an undergraduate student majoring in Marketing with a minor in Communications. Samantha worked on editing our podcast episodes and the Growing Democracy conference organized at National Louis University.
- Raphael Kasobel is a doctoral student in the College of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. Raphael worked on collecting literature on youth civic and political engagement and contributed to creating the survey instrument used to measure youth behavior.
BUILD Personnel
- Sean Price is a Community Engagement Director of the Peace & Justice Center
- Catherine Stapleton is a Peace and Justice Center Supervising Coordinator of Youth Leadership Development
- Crissi Vazquez is a Peace and Justice Center Manager of Training and Civic Engagement
- Bryant Harris is a Youth Leadership Coordinator
- Maxwell Turner was a Peace and Justice Center Coordinator
