As city council and mayoral elections loom closer, Student Government Speaker Zoey Shipley was brainstorming ways students could have more of an impact at a local level. 

She wanted to find a way to encourage more voter registration from the students, as well as help inform them on the importance of getting involved in the political process. 

“We have the one student voice on the [city] council… and I was thinking, why wouldn’t we want more student voices making an impact?”

So on Wednesday, she introduced to the senate a legislative order establishing the creation of an ad-hoc committee for civic engagement.  

“I created this committee because I really wanted the goal [to be to] emphasize to students to be aware of how much of an impact they have on a local level rather than just voting on a national scale,” Shipley said. 

The committee, according to the legislative order, will focus on how to engage students in conversations facing the community. This could be through city elections or even educating students on new state voter registration laws. 

“I don’t think students realize how much of an impact they have on the city of Ames, and vice versa; they don’t realize how much Ames has an impact on them and their college careers,” Shipley said.

Student Government Vice Speaker Cody Woodruff and Sen. Isaiah Baker will co-chair the committee. With city council elections just over a month away on Nov. 7, the two are hoping to get started as soon as possible.

“The immediate goal is the city council elections here in Ames,” Woodruff said. “Just to get them to vote and to get them involved. And then the long-term goal is just continual civic engagement and making sure they’re aware of what is going on in their city, their campus, their state and their country.”

The committee will be comprised of three at-larges, three senators, the Senior Director of Governmental Affairs as well as Woodruff and Baker. Non-voting members will include the co-directors of the legislative ambassadors and three representatives from the Andrew Goodman Foundation. 

Shipley, who is involved with the Andrew Goodman Foundation, will serve in the committee through that honorary position. 

The Andrew Goodman Foundation is recognized on campus as a student organization dubbed “Vote Everywhere” and encourages people to register to vote during election season.

The ad-hoc committee, Shipley said, is also non-partisan. 

“The activities that we’re trying to involve students in are relatively devoid of any sort of debatable or difficult topic,” Baker said. “It’s set in stone how people have to register and we’re going to do that by the letter of the law and the process.

“We’re not going to just register people that agree with us, we’re going to register everyone so that everyone can be involved — the goal is engagement in the process.”

The committee is partly modeled off the Presidential Task Force on Civic Engagement formed last year by then-president Cole Staudt to increase student-voter turnout for the presidential election.

For those interested in joining the committee as an at-large, or engaging more in the voting process, Shipley encouraged students to reach out to her, Woodruff or Baker. 

“Two things I am looking for is diversity and energy,” Woodruff said. “I think they have to have the passion to serve in this capacity.”