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Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities working to advance the public purposes of higher education, has named 154 student civic leaders who will make up the organization’s 2023-2024 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows. Celestina Hertz, a student at Alverno College, will join students from 38 states, Washington, D.C., and Mexico to form the cohort. This is the seventh consecutive year that an Alverno student has been named a Newman Civic Fellow; Katherine Watson was selected for the 2017 cohort, Alejandra Gonzalez was chosen for the 2018 cohort, Donna Lewis-Taylor was part of the 2019 cohort, Cassandra Abarca was selected for the 2020 cohort, Vania Jurkiewicz was chosen for the 2021 cohort, and Litze Estrada was chosen for the 2022 cohort.
Hertz, a social work major who plans to graduate in 2024, has a passion for civic engagement. She was recently named the representative of the Milwaukee-area university chapters for Youth Empowered in the Struggle (Y.E.S.) under the non-profit Voces De La Frontera, an organization dedicated to civil rights and workers’ rights in the Milwaukee community. As part of Y.E.S., Hertz engages in efforts to raise awareness, participation and advocacy for immigrant rights. She is also a Democracy Fellow for the Campus Vote Project, planning events focused on non-partisan voting education and registration on the Alverno campus. Hertz has an interest in the juvenile correction system, school social work, foster care and adoption with a focus on how macro-level policy impacts the individual. She is also part of the Thea Bowman Institute for Excellence and Leadership, a cohort-model, full-tuition scholarship program for Black undergraduates who have a strong desire to serve as leaders.