Welcome to the Citizen Student Movement!

What is this—you ask? Great question.

We are students tired of political gridlock. We are students tired of waiting on politicians to promote change. We are students tired of seeing our local communities suffer from non-nuanced policy shifts. We are students tired of waiting for change to happen from the top down.

We are students committed to making a change.

We believe in a new type of politics, one built in community organizing and civic engagement. Following the traditions built by Public Achievement, we believe in the concept of “citizen professionals” using their specific trade and expertise to co-create with the people they serve. Democracy is more than just voting and hoping change will come. Democracy is change at a grassroots level.

Citizen nurses actively incorporate their patients’ feedback into their staff policy decisions. Citizen engineers meet with community leaders of the neighborhoods where their structures are built. Citizen teachers devote time for students to develop their own project ideas within the frame of challenging curriculum.

When we combine the self-interests of all parties involved, everyone wins. We live in a society where we expect experts to come down from on high to lead us, or tell us the best way to live our lives. In reality, as the people who actually live our own lives, we have expertise that is undeniably valuable in any policy making process. A social worker has technical background and training, but don’t you think the people they advise are experts in their own life conditions as well? When we make the process less technical expert-driven and more inclusive of feedback, we create nuanced solutions to the highly complicated problems we face in a rapidly changing society. This, is true democracy in action.

When asked the question—what do you want to change in the world?—people’s first response almost always involves the government. That’s something that can be changed tomorrow, but what can you change today? Most people then start to think about their communities. They think about concrete actionable steps to improve the world around them. That, is the change we hope to promote. In the increasingly ineffective political atmosphere we live in, we want to take back our rightful power as citizens.

As young citizen students, we see problems all around us. Yet, we also see solutions all around us. By uniting students among shared interests, we are unstoppable. We are powerful. We are citizens finally able to have a voice and make change.

If this sounds interesting to you at all, please like our page to see our progress as our movement continues to grow! If you are a student and interested in joining, please message the page! While this formed as a UMN student group, students from other Twin Cities colleges are highly encouraged to join! We meet every Thursday from 6-7:30 (come for as little or as much as you can) and we’re always looking for new members 📷:)

Sincerely,

The Citizen Student Movement