Make Your Vote Count!

With Election Day just around the corner, many people are talking about voting and the confusion they may feel when it comes to voting by mail. Luckily, Gustavus Adolphus College students have an award-winning team to help them through the process.

The Gustavus Voter Engagement Team, consisting of Sara Kasel ’21, Charlotte Lim ’21, Ben Menke ’22,and Christopher Ortiz ’22–and advised by Amy Pehrson and Megan Ruble–was awarded first place in the Democracy Shark Tank Competition. Hosted by LeadMN, the competition allowed higher education teams to pitch their ideas for supporting student voter engagement to a panel of “sharks,” who had $10,000 worth of funding to help support campuses’ work.

Planning for the competition started last fall, when the group got together and started putting together their plan which includes voter registration events and nonpartisan education.


The team’s goal for the upcoming election is to register 85% of the student body, up from 80% in 2018. Of the registered students, the team hopes to increase the turnout rate to 90%. The team also has been engaging in nonpartisan programming to increase voter education.

“I think it is very important for all voters to find the things that are most important to them (housing, environment, health care) and do the research on where the candidates stand before you go into the voting booth,” said adviser of the Voter Engagement Team and director of the Gustavus Community Engagement Center Amy Pehrson.

Christopher Ortiz, one of the members of the team, has been working hard to engage members of other student organizations in their work.

“[One of my] short-term goals is to have a student rep for each class to help answer questions about voting, so that’s what I’m working on right now. Previously it’s been reaching out to social media accounts of other student organizations to get the word out about our website.” Ortiz said.

In addition to encouraging students to vote, the team is also sensitive to students who may not be able to. They still have ways, however, for students to be involved in the democratic process, including making the debates available for students to watch.

The team is also working on finding students who are interested in being poll workers.

Pehrson has been engaged with voting at Gustavus for years, and has found that looking at voting data reveals interesting–and sometimes perplexing–insights about student voting behavior.

“Broken down by majors, one of the areas less likely to vote is pre-health students. We scratch our heads at that,” Pehrson said. “Maybe students looking into pre-health would be interested in what candidates have to say about healthcare.”

The Voter Engagement Team is especially proud of how their website has come together, and wants people to check it out to find nearly all the information about voting they will need, including links on how to get registered, instructional videos, fact checks on political claims, where candidates stand on different issues, and sample ballots.

Gustavus has a strong history of voter engagement, including being named winner of the Minnesota Secretary of State’s inaugural Ballot Bowl in 2016, when the College ranked first among 68 colleges and universities in the state with a student participation rate of 63%.

“Voting, for me, means the ability to have your voice heard. Historically there have been a lot of groups who haven’t had the right to vote, so to have that is really huge,” Ortiz said.

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Media Contact: Director of Media Relations and Internal Communication JJ Akin
jakin@gustavus.edu
507-933-7510

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Resilience of Gustavus

The Gustie community knows how to come together and persevere during hard times! "At 5:29 p.m. on March 29, 1998, an F-3 tornado ripped through Saint Peter, Minn., causing more than $120 million in damages, destroying approximately 400 homes, and taking the life of one boy.

By 9 p.m., the American Red Cross was setting up shelters in the broken community, eventually bringing in 600 workers from 32 states and serving over 40,000 meals as the town worked to recover. More than 10,000 people volunteered to help the Saint Peter community cleanup and rebuild following the tornado, which was part of a record-breaking March supercell thunderstorm that spawned 14 tornadoes in Minnesota." 

Fast forward to spring of 2020, and once again our community faces adversity, along with the world,  dealing with the COVID pandemic. In the spring we headed home, and as a team and community stayed connected over regular zoom sessions. Fast forward again, to the beginning of the 2020 Fall semester, and only First Year and Transfer students were on campus for 3 weeks. This incoming class had a big task ahead of them, keep outbreaks limited and covid numbers low, and all the other class years would be allowed back to campus. This class and community showed once again, when we come together (even socially distant) we can achieve our goals. The first year class did a phenomenal job adhering to guidelines/ protocols, and the upperclassmen were welcomed back to campus towards the end of September. Now, well into October, we are again floored by the resiliency and compassion of the Gustavus community. By conforming to protocols and remembering the bigger picture, we have kept our COVID numbers relatively low, and as a team, we have not had anyone test positive. We are so proud of not only this team, but also to be part of the Gustavus community, and staying together to achieve our goals.

Gustavus Female Athlete of the DECADE!

The past decade has produced a wealth of exceptional Golden Gustie student-athletes and tlast month, fans had the opportunity to vote for the Gustavus Male and Female Athletes of the Decade for 2010-19. The women’s bracket featured 24 athletes from the 2010-19 era. Women's Soccer had two former athletes in the bracket: Madison Ackiss '17 - a prolific goal scorer, and Ashley Becker '19 - the best goalkeeper to go through the Gustie Soccer program. 

After battling through all the rounds, Ashley Becker '19 was in the championship match-up, and took home the crown of Female Athlete of the Decade!! The Gustie Soccer community came together to bring home the gold in a fierce final. Gustie near and far, young and older, rallied the troops, and we ran away with the voting. In a time where we seem far aways from each other, it was incredible to witness Gustie Soccer coming together to support one of our own!

Each player in our program is unique: unique in their leadership, unique in their learning styles, unique in their path to reach their max potential. We love that all our players are unique and we strive to get to know each player on an individual level to help them adjust to college on and off the field in order to accomplish greatness – and greatness looks different for each player!

Ashley Becker is a great story of thriving under our mission to create an individualized plan to help each player reach their max potential. As a Farmington, MN high school graduate who played for Dakota Rev Club, Ashley came in on a mission to become the best goalkeeper she could be. 

Ashley’s resume is impressive, however her leadership style and ability to bring out the best in her peers on the field is what her legacy is all about. Ashley will be remembered as a player who helped change the course of the program. Who made our goal of re-establishing ourselves at the top of the region attainable. Even more than that, Ashley instilled a sense of belief into every one of her teammates that, within our Gustavus Women’s Soccer program, you can accomplish your dreams and achieve greatness – in whatever way that looks for you.