Anna Ardelean
Political Science Major, 2021
The Department of Sociology is pleased to announce the first recipient of the Statham Community Engagement Award, Anna Ardelean, a junior majoring in political science. The award comes with a $1,000 prize that recognizes Anna’s commitment to community work.
Anna has made a difference on the USI campus with her community involvement. She has been working to bring a voting location to USI since her freshman year. She recognized the need to increase youth voter turnout and has been fighting to make voting more accessible for her peers ever since. After surveying students and faculty, collecting petitions, talking with administrators, researching election law, meeting with public officials, and jumping over numerous barriers, Anna is still preparing to present her proposal to the Vanderburgh County Elections Board in 2021. This month, Anna will be hosting a postcard campaign to display public support for this new polling location, where she hopes to collect 500 postcards to send to the elections board. If you are interested in helping with this effort, Anna will be tabling with the postcards on campus during the week of April 19. Stop by, fill out a card, and leave it with her. This new polling site will be helpful in generating student participation in elections and also provide local residents an alternative site to cast their votes.
Anna is the inaugural recipient of the Anne and Bettye Statham Community Engagement Award. This annual award is open to all College of Liberal Arts majors who are in good academic standing. The award was established in honor of a mother/daughter who have made contributions to our local community. Anne Statham is Professor Emerita of Sociology at USI; she launched the Service Learning Program during her tenure as a faculty member and has done many community projects of her own. Her mother also has a BA in sociology, and spent much of her adult life working as a volunteer and paid staff member for the Girls Scouts of Southwest Indiana. In that capacity, she contributed significantly to the lives of many young women, and also to efforts to advanced diversity and social justice in the local community.