Nicole Molinaro, Elon University
Nicole Molinaro is a senior at Elon University who has distinguished herself with her commitment to civic engagement. Her record is deep with a clear emphasis on international social issues. She spent Spring 2014 interning in Jordan, encouraging public awareness of social responsibility. Throughout the following summer, she volunteered without pay in Palestine, teaching English in a community center to 80 students, aged 8 to 55. This experience follows her volunteer efforts as Social Media Coordinator for a New York State Supreme Court campaign and her time as a rising sophomore interning in a U.S. Congressman’s office supporting constituent services. In her service as President of Model UN, she was the key leader of deliberative simulations delivered to first year students in many classes. She was also crucial to our voter registration efforts here in her leadership capacity with the National Campaign for Civic Engagement. Double majoring in International Studies and Political Science while minoring in Peace and Conflict Studies, she is a member of Elon University’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. She is a student with intellectual curiosity, personal charisma, dedication to justice and ability to inspire her peers to establish a lifelong commitment to serving others.
-Leo Lambert, President
My passion for civic engagement has guided me since high school. Since coming to Elon my opportunities to become engaged in my immediate community and in the rest of the world have exponentially increased. Through my variety of experiences, I have found that opportunities to engage and work with others are often the most personally enriching moments of my own life. From my internship and volunteer opportunity abroad in Palestine and Jordan, to my more local volunteer positions with the Avalon tutoring program and working voter registration drives through the National Campaign on Civic Engagement, I have come to believe that to truly engage people and change the way society works, it is important to work from the ground up, creating local approaches to local problems. My college career in civic engagement has given me the opportunity to meet a variety of people with many different approaches to addressing the problems that confront their communities, and I hope that later in life I will have the chance to leverage those experiences in a meaningful career in civic engagement.
-Nicole Molinaro
