About this event
Rural youth often face unique challenges in civic engagement and community participation, yet their voices and perspectives are frequently overlooked in discussions about centering youth leadership or improving rural engagement. Campus Compact is partnering with Hannah Botts, a national youth leader and Program Director of the Rural Youth Voice Initiative, to change that.
This September, we're excited to showcase the incredible vision and ongoing projects of our Rural Youth Voices Initiative Fellows—twelve young leaders aged 18–24 from rural communities across the United States and its territories who have spent the summer designing and implementing projects that center rural youth voices and experiences.
During this webinar, you'll hear directly from our Fellows as they present their innovative projects and visions designed to highlight what rural youth wish others knew about rural engagement while addressing their community's unique needs and values. Through their work, they're reshaping dominant narratives about rural engagement and providing concrete examples of how organizations can better center youth voices in their programming and decision-making.
Join us for this inspiring and insightful webinar!
Who should attend?
This event is free and open to members and non-members. Community-engaged students, faculty, staff, and practitioners from (or interested in working with) rural communities and rural youth are encouraged to join.
What does this mean? This virtual event is more informational with minimal interactivity. Feel free to have this webinar on in the background while you eat lunch or check email!
- Only facilitators and guest speakers will be seen on camera
- You can submit questions by typing them into the Zoom Q&A feature
- This event will focus on information sharing, presentations, or panel discussions
Meet The Moderator:
Hannah Botts
Program Director, Rural Youth Voices Project
Campus Compact
Hannah Botts is a Gen Z civic leader reimagining how institutions connect with communities too often overlooked in national discourse. A Kentucky native, she has advised foundations, local governments, and cultural institutions on youth engagement strategy. As Program Director of Campus Compact’s Rural Youth Voices Initiative, Hannah works to reframe narratives around rurality and reshape how rural community engagement is understood, supported, and sustained.
Meet The Panelists:
Madison Albers
Fort Hays State University
Project Focus: Civic engagement education for teens in the community
ZaTayvia Hayes
Social Studies Teacher at Greenville ISD High School
Project Focus: Renovating Crockett Park in Honey Grove, TX
Lisa Kennedy
Georgetown University & Rural Schools Collaborative
Project Focus: Connecting rural students with local professionals to expand career opportunities and strengthen community ties through place-based learning
Nicole Li
Elias Law Group
Project Focus: Youth civic education and engagement around local elections
Shawn Jiminez
Bowdoin College
Project Focus: Increase youth visibility by fostering community and providing a platform to address pressing issues in education.
Angela Haugen
University of Montana Western
Project Focus: Rural literature and other rural-set media
Julia Lin
Yale University
Project Focus: Highlights why it is important to increase the presence of students from rural or small-town communities on college campuses.
Lorna-lei Sua’ava
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Project Focus: Intergenerational storytelling—specifically creating space for Elders and youth to connect, share, and build relationships through the exchange of cultural knowledge, lived experiences, and ancestral wisdom.
Sravan Kodali
Stanford University
Project Focus: Identifying and uncovering issues impacting youth in rural New York by interviewing civically active young people.
Caden Lucas
Western Kentucky University
Project Focus: expanding civic participation among college students by equipping them with the tools, knowledge, and institutional support to engage meaningfully in public life.
Semaj Attaway
Delta State University
Project Focus: “Mentorship Through Meals”, a program that pairs young men with chefs and mentors to channel their energy into cooking, entrepreneurship, and communication. The project focuses on dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline by replacing punitive discipline with mentorship, skill-building, and positive opportunities for growth.
Preethika Yetukuri
Clemson University
Project Focus: The Rural Voices Lab seeks to create a virtual-first civic engagement program that empowers rural youth to:
- Produce SDG-aligned policy briefs and community action plans.
- Build civic skills through workshops in critical thinking, storytelling, and policy writing.
- Share their voices publicly through a digital showcase, booklet, and website hub.
- Connect to career pathways through mentorship, networking, and practical opportunities.
The program begins online, accessible from a laptop, but expands to include physical access hubs in libraries and community centers for youth without broadband. Long term, the vision is to establish a tiered opportunity ladder that begins locally and extends to regional, state, national, and global networks.
Questions? Get in touch with us at events@compact.org