Celebrating the civic vocation of ACT students and alumni

Earlier this spring the Dukakis Center at ACT -- The American College of Thessaloniki --  hosted a small reception and workshop in the Bissell Library for graduates and staff who ran for public office in local elections last October.

The reception was an integral part of the Dukakis Center’s Fifth Civil Society Forum, held on campus during the week of March 4-8, 2024. Other activities scheduled that week were a voter registration drive for American citizens residing in Northern Greece; the Global Democratic Presidential Primary, co-hosted by the Thessaloniki chapter of Democrats Abroad Greece, represented by Randall Warner and Peter Baiter; and a special episode of Dukakis Center Live on Anixneusis Web TV on the theme “How to Conduct an Election when no one trusts the integrity of the process,” with guests Quinn Yeargain of Widener University and Charles Stewart of MIT.

The reception began with a briefing by David Wisner, Executive Director of the Dukakis Center, on the civic vocation of ACT students and alumni since the turn of the millennium. What follows below is a recap of the presentation and a summary of the main points raised during the ensuing workshop. Those present then responded to the following questions in a wide-ranging discussion: What prompted you to run for office in October 2023? What were the principal challenges you faced? Would you run again? Why or why not?

Highlights from the presentation

The civic character of ACT’s institutional identity was made clear in a recording of a brief interview featuring ACT Provost Stamos Karamouzis. “Paramount to ACT's mission is our institution's contribution to society,” Dr. Karamouzis says in the clip. “The role of the university is to prepare the citizens of tomorrow.” Dr. Wisner then shared various data on the incidence of public-mindedness among ACT students and alumni, and material from two ongoing projects, one on the youth vote in Greece and the US, the other, entitled “Barriers to Entry,” on the specific difficulties faced by young and first-time candidates. 

In July 2011 ACT hosted a team of education specialists from Indiana State University, who conducted a formal outcomes assessment survey on campus of ACT students. The survey measured aptitudes and performance across a broad range of curricular and extracurricular areas, including civics. The survey team found that although the ACT student body at the time lagged slightly behind their American peers in such areas as voting or membership in civic organizations, they scored higher than the American average with regard to civic knowledge and interpersonal communication, while the aggregate ACT score in this domain was better overall that that measured at institutions of higher learning in the United States (rubric on citizenship below, Appendix 1).

Data collected a decade later for a report in support of re-accreditation efforts complemented these earlier findings. ACT students from all majors, and particularly International Relations, were found to have interned or volunteered with varying degrees of frequency, in the decade of the 2010s, while select candidates had an opportunity to take a civil society practicum for credit or attend masterclasses conducted on and off campus by renowned practitioners. As many as 60% of those surveyed had demonstrated some civic vocation during their residency here, while 25% or more actually found meaningful work in civil society or the public sector after finishing their studies at ACT. Impressionistic data corroborates these findings, with alumni from all major fields experiencing some degree of success in electoral politics, particularly in the countries of Southeast Europe and, to a lesser extent, in the United States.

As the discussion turned next to the actual experience of running a campaign in local elections, three themes emerged: time constraints; the cost of mounting a campaign; and the integration of information technology in a candidate’s communication strategy. The biggest obstacle for any candidate to overcome is the lack of time. More than one of the evening’s guests lamented that they did not have enough free time to meet the demands of a regular campaign, even in a municipal election. Also lamented was the cost of campaigning, regardless of how well known an individual candidate might be. An overcrowded electoral list is an impediment to overcome, where candidates on the same mayoral ticket are also rivals for a limited number of seats on a municipal council. 

Finally, the participants in the discussion remarked how difficult it was to integrate the use of social media into a campaign where one’s personal presence was at a premium. George Kokkas, Director of ACT’s Entrepreneurship Hub and a candidate in Kalamaria with the outgoing Mayor, produced a video clip which went viral and was featured on several television news programs, but which did not help the candidate get elected, in the final analysis. Voters do not identify with candidates who are not online, but virtual campaigns alone cannot win an election.

This was not the first time the Dukakis Center convened candidates in local elections from the larger ACT family. In November 2019 ACT alumnus Dimitris Diamantis moderated a round table discussion at the Daios Hotel featuring seven ACT alumni who had just run in local elections that year, at which the newly elected Mayor of Thessaloniki, Konstantinos Zervos, made a cameo appearance. Then-candidate Zervos had previously been one of the subjects in the landmark exhibition “Would You Vote For Me” hosted by the Dukakis Center at the Port Annex of the National Museum of Modern Art in June 2014, at which five ACT interns presented photographs of select candidates in local and European elections that year. (A partial list of these and other related events is appended below, Appendix 2.)

Modest though the current reception may have been, all those present agreed that it was stimulating and productive. As one of the guests concluded, ACT and the Dukakis Center are a beacon of light for political awareness in our city.

The Dukakis Center’s next election-related event will take place later in the spring of 2024. Meanwhile, the Center will begin implementing the curricular proposals made in intern Jack Roberts’ report, in a pilot training course designed to help first-time candidates launch their maiden campaigns. Supporting this latter project is a report produced by study abroad intern Jack Roberts (American University, Fall 2023) entitled “Qualitative Entry into Civic Education and Political Management Programs” (excerpt below, Appendix 3).

Appendix 1. 2011 UNILoA survey, rubric on citizenship

Appendix 2. Major civic awareness activities and projects since 2012:

• February 11, 2012, Diplomatic Academy Training Simulation, with Stelios Kelaiditis, Constantinos Constandinidis, and six students from Anatolia high school, Bissell Library
• March 15, 2012, Jessup International Moot Court Practice Session, with six students from the University of Thessaloniki Law School, Niarchos Teleconference Room
• May 16, 2012, Inspiration Exchange Workshop, “Post-election Greece: Looking Ahead,” with Simon Benssason, formerly European Commission, and ten ACT students, Bissell Library
• November 27, 2013, Dukakis Seminar Series, Popi Asteriadou, TV100, "Documenting an elusive presence: A film on Auschwictz-Birkenau," with Heinz Kounio, Holocaust survivor, and forty study abroad students, Bissell Library
• December 12, 2013, Student debate, “Public service in Greece and the United States,” featuring Robert Saunders, US Consul General of Thessaloniki, with six ACT and study abroad students, Niarchos Teleconference Center, Bissell Library
• April-May 2014 Masterclass in documentary film-making, with Christos Nikoleris and seven Dukakis Center interns, Bissell Library
• June 5-21, 2014, Inaugural Festival of Civic and Urban Culture, “Would you vote for me?” exhibition of student photography, with Zani Manginis, Valbona Makovci, Lorenzo Di Buongrazio, and George Belidis. mentored by Chryssa Nikoleri, State Museum for Contemporary Art, Port Annex
• November 23-27, 2015, Dukakis Masterclass, Dimitris Bouras, Masterclass in Photojournalism and service at refugee camp soup kitchens, with ten ACT students, New Building Audio-Visual Room and Eidomeni refugee camp
• May 23, 2016, Workshop, “Politics at the Bistrot: How Democratic are the Democratic Primaries,” with Alec Mally and John Koenig, Democratic Delegates, and twenty-five students from ACT and the University of Macedonia, La Place Mignonne
• November 30, 2016, Live crowd-funding event, “A Taste of Change,” in collaboration with FEAST Thessaloniki, featuring Dorie Clark and five young local entrepreneurs
• April-May, 2017, Young Citizens Project, 1st Elementary School of Panorama (class of fifteen sixth-grade pupils)
• March 9-10, 2018, Intercollegiate Democratic Convention on the Future of Europe, keynote speaker William Valasidis, Director of Communication at the Court of Justice of the European Union, with twenty-five local high school and university students, Municipality of Thessaloniki
• June 21 till July 17, 2017, Exhibition, Scott Townsend, “Social Capital,” French Institute of Thessaloniki (supplemented by civil society practicum for six ACT students)
• March 17, 2019, Intercollegiate Workshop, “European Parliament Elections: Why Care?” in collaboration with the Office of the European Parliament in Greece, with thirty local university students, Mediterranean Palace Hotel
• May 9, 2019, Dukakis Center intern presentation, “Je t’aime moi non plus,”  Symbiosis Conference, Municipality of Thessaloniki (featuring four Dukakis Center interns)
• November 8, 2019, Dukakis Round Table, “How I Managed My Campaign,” featuring seven ACT alumni and special guest, Konstantinos Zervas, Mayor of Thessaloniki, Daios Hotel
• March 3, 2020, and again March 5, 2024, Global Democratic Presidential Primary and voter registration drive, in collaboration with Democrats Abroad Greece, Thessaloniki Chapter, with interns and study abroad volunteers 

Appendix 3. “Qualitative Entry into Civic Education and Political Management Programs: Looking Ahead”