Senior David Rodriguez honored for civic engagement

Senior David Rodriguez honored for civic engagement
Monday, January 23, 2023

David Rodriguez, a senior majoring in public health sciences, recently received the Community Impact Student Award given by North Carolina Campus Engagement, a statewide network of colleges and universities committed to preparing students for civic and social responsibility.

Rodriguez has served as the urbanCORE civic engagement coordinator with the 49er Democracy Experience, where he partners with student organizations and student leaders to build momentum for voter education and voter engagement at UNC Charlotte.

He worked with the Latino Civic Engagement Committee, a local organization, to host Voto Latino, an event on campus to discuss the growing significance of Latino voter engagement in Mecklenburg County. He wrote and received a grant to host the annual Donut Forget to Vote event and helped plan and moderate “State of Democracy: Misinformation in the Age of Democracy,” a panel of students discussing strategies for critically evaluating information during the election season.

Rodriguez was an inaugural participant in the Student Solutions Innovation Lab, a partnership between UNC Charlotte, Johnson C. Smith University and Novant Health. This program encourages students to use their own life experiences and resilience strategies to inform a design thinking approach to student success challenges.

He helped lead a group of students to organize interviews with University students and faculty and with health professionals and then to share their findings. He also has served as a research assistant at Camino Community Center where he worked with them to develop a survey to better understand approaches to civic participation among members of the Latino community.