Interview with Alessia Modjarrad, President of IU College Democrats
Hello, everyone, and welcome to my first ever swell cast. I have the privilege of joining the swell team as a student advisor, and we are going to kick it off by uplifting a prominent student leader at my University, Indiana University in Bloomington. So let's all show our warmest welcome to Alessia majord, who serves as the President of IU. Iu
Alessia Modjarrad
@alemeh · 2:12
But for this specific interview, I'd love to get into what I do in order to engage and organize campus students, specifically, College Democrats at IU is a club that's been around for a long time. I've been President since January. I guess I've been President since December of last year
But before we do, do you mind sharing perhaps your favorite project that you're currently working on or past project that you're super proud of and go into a little bit more depth of what role you played, what action you took within your role as President of IU College Democrats and feel free to also highlight any of the other team members that helped you with this. Don't hesitate to brag, and yeah, I look forward to hearing your answer
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Alessia Modjarrad
@alemeh · 3:31
Honestly, this is a pretty hard question to answer, because I love so much of what I do. And like you mentioned, you know, having different hats. I kind of do a lot of different things at different times, but something's that I'm really particularly proud of is actually what originally got me into activism. I had always been pretty political even as a kid. I was like a staunch Obama supporter in 2008 and 2012, and in 2016 I was all for Bernie and the primary
Alessia Modjarrad
@alemeh · 2:05
Yeah. So the College Democrats and College Republicans typically have a debate every semester. We didn't have one last semester just because of the timing with the pandemic and sending everyone home. But we did this semester, and this is the first time time that I used in government has hosted it for us, which was really awesome. We went through four different topics. One was Coba 19, the economy, higher education, and then just general, like diversity, inclusion, racial equality
Thank you so much for sharing that I, as a student of color myself at IU have noticed that IU isn't necessarily as diverse that they say that they are. But then to actually hear the numbers behind the that really changes my perspective personally, just, wow. I watched the debate myself, and I also think you did a wonderful job
Alessia Modjarrad
@alemeh · 3:20
And so I want to do what will best use my time efficiently, where I can get the most bang for my buck when it comes in terms of actually helping out my community, helping out Indiana, helping out the rest of this country and getting people what they need to be successful. And so if that looks like working on a Senate race in 2022, then so be it. If that looks like working in another state, that's what it is. Really
I hope to follow you with your successes in the future and also please feel free to add anything, share anything else if you think of something later on as well as very flexible, of course. And I'm glad you like it. So feel free to reply if you think of anything else later on. I also will post here the link tree to IU College Democrats, so please feel free to check them out to our audience listening to our audience listening
Sudha Varadarajan
@sudha · 0:57
What happens to the ballot if they register to vote in the location where the College is present? Was just wondering, what happens to those votes. Would you send a mail Invalid to that student, even if he or she were in a different state? Not sure what the rules are and how it works
Alessia Modjarrad
@alemeh · 1:36
And we're still reaching out to people digitally and through their classes to make sure that one they were registered to vote by the actual voter registration deadline in Indiana that was October 5. And now we've kind of transitioned into making sure people either early vote at the Bloomington early voting location that they know where to vote on Election Day, if that's what they choose to do, or they know how to actually request an Addison to ballot for either their home state or here in Indiana
Howie Rubin
@Howie · 0:20
I would like to know what your generation thinks are the four or five really key issues that your generation is concerned with. I would also like to know how you differ in your opinions of what's going on in the United States States, Democrats versus Republicans
Alessia Modjarrad
@alemeh · 2:17
Those are two really awesome questions. I think the most pressing issue for a lot of people my age, at least the ones that I've talked to has to do mostly with climate change. Climate change is going to be something that affects us more and more every day, exponentially. And we're already seeing the effects of that all across the world. Most recently, we're seeing the effects of climate change with the crazy California wildfires. And so I know that's on everyone's mind