Six questions with Take It On Fellow Abby White
Nov 9, 2022
In honor of Election Day, Xavier’s Office of Marketing and Communications sat down with senior Abby White to learn about the University’s Take It On initiative and her role in the organization.
White double majors in communication studies and Philosophy, Politics, and the Public (PPP), with a passion for politics and government. She has worked with Take It On for two years to increase voting in the younger generations, educate them and create a space for safe, open dialogue where people can express their political opinions and have progressive conversations.
How did you end up at Xavier?
I chose Xavier for a lot of reasons, probably the most important being the PPP program, which is a very unique major, interdisciplinary, just a combination of all the things I really enjoy: politics, government, history, writing and reading. It also offered a good opportunity for internships and jobs.
Beyond academics, when I visited Xavier, I really loved the campus. It felt very comfortable, and it just felt like home in the in a way that I didn't feel at the other universities I applied to or visited.
Could you give us an overview of Take It On?
Take It On is the University initiative to encourage dialogue, voting and conversation. It's nonpartisan, so it's not connected to either the Republicans, the Democrats or even independents. It's kind of right down the middle. We offer the opportunity for students and staff and faculty to engage in conversations that a lot of times are only had in a partisan type of way. We also encourage student voting. The youth vote is really important, as we've seen in past elections. It can really turn the tide, so we get students registered, we help them find their polling locations, and we just offer that opportunity for people to get more civically engaged.
When and why did you join Take It On?
I started with Take It On my sophomore year of Xavier. It's a campus-wide initiative started by Father Graham, now continued by President Hanycz, and they're both very supportive of the initiative and think that it's really important for the University to set the standard and move forward as a Jesuit institution encouraging civic dialogue. It started as that, and it was more like a faculty-led initiative.
They brought me in as the first student fellow to the program. You know, asking, 'How can we get students involved? How can we do this? How can we do that?'. My answer to a lot of the questions was opening it up to more students. A lot of people don't know about it and it's just a faculty-led thing, a staff-led thing trying to encourage student participation, but it wasn't open to students at that time. That's when they really opened the program up, allowed me to come in, which I was really grateful for, and then we started working on this new program with students, allowing students to come in. We have another student fellow as well now. Her name is Jade. She does some great work with the dialogue team, and I specifically lead the voting and election side of things.
How do you think Xavier’s values influence the political process and the values of your Take It On initiative?
I think Jesuit values of reflection and discernment and being formed with others lend themselves to civic engagement and should promote it for people to get involved. If we're truly being formed with others and you're kind of sitting back and reflecting on your values and who you are as a person, you want to see that represented in our government. It offers the opportunity for people to do that, and I think it's important for students that share Jesuit values, but also that come to Xavier and aren’t Jesuit, aren’t Catholic, they still have the space to have conversations, to debate, to have dialogue.
I think it's important as a Jesuit university that we encourage our students to do that, and I think civic engagement is something that pretty much all Jesuit colleges really promote, but I want Xavier to be put on the map and be the first to really take that on and just be leading that charge.
What are your hopes for the future of this program?
As a senior, I'm graduating, I'm sad to leave something that I've been a part of for so long and really cared about, but my hope for the future is that when I look back in five years that, like I said, Xavier's leading the way for other institutions, whether that be Jesuit, non-Jesuit, public institutions, to really take civic dialogue and engagement and voting seriously.
I want to see more people know about what Take It On is. I think two years ago, not a lot of people did, and now we even have just a few more people that know what we're doing. We have more students involved. I'd like it to be more open, more accessible, have more students involved, have more faculty. I think a really good step in the right direction that we took this year is that students have Election Day off classes, which is something that we researched and that we looked towards two years ago, so I think that’s a really good step.
Also, I'd like to have Xavier known to be a very civically minded institution promoting discussion in a nonpartisan way and offering students that opportunity to discuss those sides of things before they make a decision and make sure that they're informed about the decisions that they make.
Is there anything you want someone to know about this initiative that we haven't talked about yet?
Take It On is a nonpartisan thing, but a lot of people get really scared of, “Oh, I'm going to be judged for talking about my opinions.” That's not the space at all that we create. It's open for all students, all backgrounds, all political ideologies, all of that, for people to just engage. It's a very safe and welcoming space that students should be excited to be a part of. We have lots of events that we post on our social media. We're trying to be as accessible as possible.
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MORE XAVIER ELECTION DAY COVERAGE:
@officialxavieruniversity Do Xavier students vote? Spoiler: yes! @Take It On XU #jesuit #xavieruniversity #collegelife #collegestudentlife #letsgox #xavieruniversity #collegetiktok #midwestcheck #midwestcollege #votetiktok #vote2022 #midterms2022 ♬ FEEL THE GROOVE - Queens Road, Fabian Graetz
Voting and Jesuit values go hand in hand, through solidarity and kinship, cura personalis, and more.
— Xavier University (@XavierU) November 8, 2022
Follow along on Instagram as Take It On highlights how Musketeers are using civic engagement to make a difference in our community this Election Day ⬇️
https://t.co/8TQX6CON3n pic.twitter.com/hxxaXRBNkT