From Government to Development and Beyond, OSUN Certificates Prep Graduates for Careers in Civic Engagement

By Emily O’Rourke, Bard ‘25, Bard MAT' 26

Just a few days before official graduation ceremonies at Bard College, OSUN faculty and staff held their own ceremony honoring seniors who received the Certificate in Civic Engagement and the Certificate in Public Policy and Economic Analysis. A total of twenty students wearing OSUN-branded graduation stoles gathered in the Fisher Center with family and friends to share toasts and listen to speeches made in their honor.

The Certificate in Civic Engagement (Certificate in CE) is a credential offered by OSUN and the Center for Civic Engagement that gives undergraduates a structured path to deepen their knowledge and understanding of civic and community engagement, focusing on both their curricular and co-curricular interests. The Certificate in Public Policy and Economic Analysis (Certificate in PPEA), offered by OSUN and the Levy School of Economics, is designed to prepare future policymakers to address structural challenges, such as inequality, poverty, and unemployment. The second program provides training in cutting-edge economic thinking with an intersectional approach to data science and a focus on historical and institutional factors.

The Certificate in PPEA requires students to take courses in economics plus electives and then write a public policy brief. The Certificate in CE requires four courses relating to the theory and practice of civic engagement and participation in 100 hours of civic engagement work and activities. Upon completing the certificate, CE students are asked to write a final reflection paper that addresses the learning outcomes for the program and considers how this curriculum taught them to practice civic engagement in their everyday lives.

I have been working toward my Certificate in Civic Engagement ever since my sophomore year at Bard when I heard about the program while attending the Citizen Science symposium. Sarah deVeer, Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Civic Engagement, discussed the CE certificate at the conference and I realized right away that this was something I needed to have on my resume.

During my time in the program, I have engaged and participated civically from several different approaches. Through the Volunteer Corps, I collaborated with other students to create and promote volunteer events that connected the student body with the broader community off campus. With the SCALE Project, I helped address equity and affordability for Bard students by developing resource guides and programs that were aimed at making the college experience more accessible. 

By the end of my sophomore year, I took on a different kind of civic engagement by joining the team organizing the TEDx Bard conference. Our first event revolved around the theme of “Shaping the Future,” and the second on “Building Bridges.” Both themes were intentionally left open to interpretation, as we strove to make connections within Bard College and beyond the classroom, including talks on topics relating to sustainability, equity, and voting access.
 
These themes reflected a core motivation behind my own personal involvement in all of these projects: the desire to create meaningful change. As I wrote in my final reflection paper, "Civic engagement has been an inescapable part of my college experience." Not only has the program taught me how to be an active citizen and how to do civic engagement but it has also taught me the importance of being involved in multiple communities, as the future of democracy depends on it. Civic engagement came to seem so important to me that as I progressed through my college career, I found I was frequently taking the ideas and concepts I learned about in the certificate program and applying them to my other studies. I even wrote my Senior Project (SPROJ) on civic engagement within college and university settings. 

I can confidently say that I am not the only student to have benefited greatly from the OSUN and CCE opportunities on campus. Yale Coopersmith ‘26, majoring in Written Arts with a concentration in Environmental Studies and a strong interest in politics, shared with me how she has seen the insights and teachings from this certificate manifest in her life outside of the program.  “The Certificate of Civic Engagement program has helped me gain hands-on experiences in advocacy and activist spaces. This has been invaluable for my professional development,” said Yale. My work through the Certificate program helped me net an elite internship with a State Senator. I know that my work with the Certificate program will continue to resonate and aid me as I continue working towards my life post-Bard.”

While the Certificate ceremony lasted only an hour, it was a great conclusion to the program and it provided a special opportunity to interact with students who were earning Certificates in the Public Policy and Economic Analysis Program. On that day and in the days that followed, I got to catch up with my peers and ask about their time in the program and where they were headed next.”

Kaan Ozelmas ‘25, who majored in Economics and earned a certificate in Public Policy and Economic Analysis, told me after the ceremony that “I’m eager to apply the skills I’ve developed to high-impact projects at the intersection of economics, infrastructure, and public value." Ozelmas said gifted professors, such as Sanjay DeSilva, Pavlina Tcherneva, Aniruddha Mitra, Gautam Sethi, and Kyle Mohr, consistently challenged him to think critically and apply economic theory to real-world policy and financial issues. Next he will be joining Mott MacDonald, a development and management consulting firm in New York, where he will apply the skills he learned at Bard to budgeting, financials, performance tracking, and advising.  

My involvement with CCE and the Certificate in CE introduced me to the idea that civic engagement can manifest in a variety of ways, from the immediate and tangible impacts of volunteer work, to the more long term, systematic changes that come from working within institutional frameworks to create sustainable change. 

The program has also  shown me that civic engagement is about creating connections, not just between individuals, but between ideas, experiences, and communities. It is about recognizing the ways in which we are interdependent and how our actions have the ability to strengthen the communities we belong to. The diversity of experiences I’ve had in my time at Bard has helped me realize that engagement can take many forms. What matters most is the intention behind the work and the desire to contribute to something larger than oneself. 

I am honored to receive this certificate and to be a part of this cohort; the experience has been invaluable. As I write this, I am in my first week at the Bard Masters of Arts in Teaching Program, where I look forward to drawing on my civic engagement knowledge as I continue my studies and eventually begin to teach.

Post Date: 06-13-2025