The Tennessee Democracy Network hosted the 2026 annual Tennessee Campus Civic Summit Feb. 27 in Central Library. The event centered on student-driven changemaking, political organizing and legislative literacy, and it featured over 10 panelists representing politics, social impact organizations and academia.
The event opened with remarks from Katie Fahey, executive director of a nonpartisan political organizing group. Fahey shared an anecdote about her work responding to the Flint water crisis, which ultimately contributed to broader fundraising and community organizing efforts to amend the Michigan Constitution.
“We realized that how we were organizing was making the difference. The other cool thing was that you would have Democrats and Republicans who would talk to each other about what wasn’t working in our system, and what a future where we work together [would] look like,” Fahey said.
The next session featured a panel on aligning individual messaging with organizational goals. Panelist Elizabeth Haley, director of a mutual aid nonprofit based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, described her role as helping ensure alignment in efforts to support voter engagement.
“What politicians and the system at large have done is told all of us that we don’t matter so that we stopped participating, and now they have control of everything,” Haley said. “A lot of the work that we’re doing right now is centering those values so that people can make internal references to what their own values are and compare them to the candidates we’re looking at.”
Brandon Jones, communications director of a statewide civic engagement coalition, emphasized that students’ motivation for political organizing often stems from their personal values.
“When we think about nonpartisan messaging and nonpartisan communications, we want to make sure that we’re leaning on the values,” Jones said. “What I mean when I tell students about having a strategy is making sure you’re aligned with your values when it comes to civic engagement work.”
The summit’s third session focused on reproductive justice and health care in student communities. Senior Caterina Tian-Svobodny, co-president of Planned Parenthood Generation Action at Vanderbilt, spoke on the importance of reproductive justice education on college campuses.
“At Vanderbilt, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of stigmatizations around reproductive topics. That’s why having initiatives on campus and having peers talking about these topics and encouraging these topics is really important,” Tian-Svobodny said.
The summit concluded with a panel on civil rights protesting in Tennessee. Timothy Hughes, president of the Nashville area National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, opened the discussion by placing current organizing efforts within a broader historical context.
“Many of the individuals at Fisk University, American Baptist College, here at Vanderbilt University, were teenagers when they occupied the lunch counters downtown,” Hughes said. “So, we tap into their legacy and their work to inform how it is that we are to move in this moment.”
He continued by underscoring the importance of student participation in the political process.
“The power that students have to engage in the civic engagement process is profound because if they did not have power, they would not be limiting your access to the vote,” Hughes said. “The power we have is to make determinations about what happens with our resources. We cannot concede the power we have.”
The summit closed with Britany Green sharing how important it was that everyone in attendance made the effort to show up and how there is more work to be done going forward.
“I know that we’re all here because we all came to gain some knowledge for ourselves and hopefully take that knowledge back to our communities and empower our own movements. We know that knowledge is power, and I know that’s why we’re here,” Green said.
Senior Ochuwa Garuba was both a panelist during the summit and attendee for other panels. Garuba shared that her largest takeaway was from the last panel about the history of civic action in Tennessee, where they emphasized no movement happens overnight.
“It was collective action. It was working together as a team because no movement stands on the shoulders of one person, of course,” Garuba said. “[It’s] having those consistent efforts that really showed sustained growth and sustained movement overtime.”
Mikaela Webb, a graduate student from the University of Tennessee, was also in attendance at the Summit as both a panelist and attendee. Webb shared why she believes it is so important for civic engagers across the state to stay connected with one another.
“It’s very easy to get siloed [into] what’s just happening on your campus,” Webb said. “So having an opportunity for everyone to come together and share their difficulties — either with admin on campus, or their victories with different kinds of events they’ve held — it really helps everyone.”
Raymond Ni, a first-year graduate student at Vanderbilt, was a panelist and attendee at the Summit. Ni resonated with the discussion on how change is always inevitable, and it’s our job to generate that change.
“One thing I really took away from the last panel about civil rights [and] activism in Tennessee is just that times are always going to be turbulent,” Ni said. “But that’s why we do this work because we want to be prepared to make the world a better place.”
Elyssa Looney, a senior at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, was a panelist during the summit. Looney also shared support for grassroots organizing.
“Going out and protesting is great, but if you don’t do something after that, there’s no point in going,” Looney said.
