Our origins were not politics as usual. In 2004, after an election bogged down by partisan bickering and uninspiring rhetoric, a few students on a few different campuses across the country realized that something needed to be done to combat the disillusionment of young progressives. We'd put our boots on the ground, we'd knocked on doors, we'd held signs, we'd given what little money we had, but our ideas were still absent from the political process. We envisioned a movement where young people could fill the critical ideas gap in communities across the country, generating new solutions for current problems. In doing so, a new generation of progressives could burst forth on the nation's political stage.

 

 

he Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network is a national student initiative that engages young people in a unique form of progressive activism that empowers them as leaders and promotes their ideas for change. Through communication and coordination with political actors and community members, students identify pressing issues facing their towns, counties and states. Taking advantage of the unique resources on their college campuses, they engage in policy research and writing and then connect the fruits of that research to the political process, delivering sound, progressive proposals to policymakers and advocacy groups.