Christopher Wager, Georgetown University

Christopher WagerChristopher Wager, a sophomore in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, is a student leader committed to social justice issues affecting immigrant communities and workers. Engaging in community organizing, both on campus and in Washington, DC, Chris exemplifies what it means to pursue the Jesuit value of Magis – the “more” – by leading and serving with and through his whole self. Through his work as a coordinator of the Kalmanovitz Initiative Day Laborer Exchange, Chris leads a team of 20 students who advocate for migrant workers’ rights and wage protection in our nation’s capital. As a student leader for Georgetown’s Alternative Break trip to the US-Mexico border in Arizona, Chris has planned all aspects of a week-long experience for 12 students and two staff members that includes cultural immersion, human rights awareness, service work and daily reflection. 
Through these and other commitments, Chris has collaborated side-by-side with diverse community partners, showcasing his attuned communication skills and commitment to solidarity. He is well-known for his energy, creative problem-solving, capacity for envisioning alternative realities for marginalized groups and for inspiring others to get engaged in this important work.
-President DeGioia, Georgetown University

I am deeply influenced by the Jesuit value of Magis, a Latin word meaning “more.” For me, Magis is both intensely personal and deliberately outward: it reminds me to demand not only more, but also something radically different from what currently exists in our society. To me, this endeavor means working towards the dismantling of oppressive structures while simultaneously deconstructing my own complicity in them. To those ends, I have engaged in labor and community organizing work at Georgetown University and in Washington, DC. As an organizer, I have sought to contribute to migrant and worker justice movements from a position of solidarity. Organizing has allowed me to operate in solidarity with day laborers, food service workers, and my undocumented friends and peers at Georgetown by supporting and amplifying their efforts towards more just, equitable campus and workplace cultures. I believe that effectively addressing the root causes of oppression and ultimately realizing collective liberation from them requires me to adopt an oppositional praxis that seeks to abolish the sources of my own power and privilege as a white-passing, cisgender man while standing in active solidarity with those who directly resist social marginalization and exploitation. 
-Christopher Wager