Roger Williams University

Senior political science major gained real-world experience with internships in London and Washington, plus work on campaigns and polling. 

BRISTOL, R.I. – Hands-on learning is a standard part of an RWU education and, like many Roger Williams University students, Rachel Wells has taken part in internships provide valuable, real-world experience in locations all across the world. But not everyone has been applauded by former British Prime Minister David Cameron.

On Oct. 26, Wells attended a presentation by political scientist Christopher H. Achen, who came to RWU as part of the President’s Distinguished Speakers Series. Before the speech, she had a chance to chat with Achen about everything from the United States’ presidential race to the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote. And attention turned to the fact that she’d been in London, as part of an RWU internship, during the 2015 elections that returned Cameron to 10 Downing Street as prime minister.

Wells, 21, a senior political science major from Woburn, Mass., worked as an intern with Cameron’s Conservative Party, handling letters from constituents between January and May 2015. During the semester, she saw Cameron from time to time, but she didn’t meet him until her last day, when he stopped by party headquarters to thank her and two other American interns.

“He clapped for me,” Wells said. “He made us feel welcomed. He said, ‘Thank you for all you have done for the party.’”

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Mario J. Gabelli School of Business junior selected for fellowship program that integrates student leaders into Rhode Island’s entrepreneurship scene.

BRISTOL, R.I. – If you recently bought a Boston Celtics ticket on the secondary market there is a good chance that you purchased it via student entrepreneur Amanda Calderon. In less than a year the junior marketing major has built a profitable business in the booming secondary ticket industry with her site Courtside Broker.

One might think it beginner’s luck, but the native of Morris Plains, N.J., has been churning out her own small businesses from an early age, making enough bucks with the recent endeavor to forgo further work-study assistance (she worked the Annual Fund Phonathon one year) or the typical college-student job.

Now she’s helping foster the same entrepreneurial spirit among her peers at Roger Williams University and other colleges across Rhode Island as a 2016 Changemaker Fellow. It’s part of a unique statewide effort led by Social Enterprise Greenhouse and the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation to increase awareness and resources for student entrepreneurs in the Ocean State. A marketing major with minors in web development and graphic design communication, Calderon was selected as a fellow for her leadership in the University’s professional business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi – Nu Sigma, and for her interests in social enterprise and entrepreneurship; she also serves as the advertising chair on the University’s Multicultural Student Union and has previously played intramural sports and written for the student newspaper, the Hawk’s Herald.

From her passion for inspiring entrepreneurship in others to leveraging her Changemaker Fellowship, Calderon recently sat down for a Q&A with PDQ@RWU.

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Delegation to leverage expertise in distributing humanitarian aid and local connections to deliver donations to those devastated by Hurricane Matthew.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Rather than ship donations overseas and hope it arrives to those in most need, a Roger Williams University professor and two alumni will soon travel to Haiti to hand-deliver money, medicine and food, using their expertise and local connections to ensure that aid gets to the people devastated by Hurricane Matthew.

The delegation from New Bridges for Haitian Success, Inc. – Bernard Georges ’14, Omar Bah ’14 and RWU Associate Professor of History Autumn Quezada de Tavarez – will bring the cash and donated items directly to some of the hardest-hit areas of Haiti, which saw the destruction of entire villages, thousands of people displaced and estimates of more than 800 dead from the Category 4 hurricane that swept the country on Oct. 8.

The trip comes amid reports that some Haitians and Haitian-Americans are skeptical about whether the American Red Cross can effectively manage the humanitarian efforts in Haiti. That skepticism is fueled by a ProPublica and National Public Radio report that the Red Cross raised nearly half a billion dollars but managed to build just six permanent homes following Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. The Red Cross has said the report’s “misleading headline” fueled “persistent myths” and that the money funded 100 humanitarian aid projects in Haiti.

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Community invited to President’s Distinguished Speakers Series event featuring world-renowned scholar of elections and public opinion. 

BRISTOL, R.I. – Voters are driven by partisan beliefs, they align with identity groups and they react to uncontrollable events such as drought or shark attacks. So their selection of leaders is much more nuanced than the ideal of citizens casting votes informed by an objective and thorough analysis of a politician’s positions on the issues. Christopher H. Achen, the renowned political scientist, will illuminate the realities of democratic politics and shatter the romantic notion of government by the will of the people during an appearance at Roger Williams University on Wednesday, Oct. 26.

Members of the campus community and the public are invited to spend an evening with Achen – co-author (with Larry Bartels) of Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (2016) and the Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences at Princeton University – as part of the President’s Distinguished Speakers Series at Roger Williams University. In his presentation – “Why Do Elections Produce Unresponsive Government?” – Achen will dispel the notion that elections are driven by ordinary citizens’ rational policy positions, while offering a provocative alternative view grounded in political parties and identity groups.

“Achen is a world-renowned political scientist and premier methodologist whose most recent work is a groundbreaking study of how citizens choose presidential candidates and how elections work,” says RWU Professor of Political Science Robert Eisinger. “Many citizens believe that government isn’t representing them, or responding to their needs and wants. If we can have a civil, thoughtful conversation about what is responsive government and how elections work, I think we elevate the political discourse. Let’s do this on October 26 with one of the foremost scholars studying elections and representation.”

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