WAVERLY — When Wartburg College junior Josh Voigt speaks, those around him usually stop and listen.
For starters, his South African accent is often cause for curiosity throughout the Midwest. On campus, though, the student body president has developed a reputation for using his voice to ensure others can be heard.
That reputation, along with a nomination from Wartburg President Darrel Colson, caught the attention of Campus Compact’s Newman Civic Fellows selection team, which named Voigt and 261 others across the U.S. to its 2019-20 cohort.
Voigt, who came to Wartburg from Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, said his experiences at the international school, which serves more than 600 students from 60 nationalities, showed him what the world could look like, how people can be represented and how a school can function to ensure that everyone feels represented.
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“The thing that drives me the most is for those people who have also come from places like that, how can I try to get their voices heard, alongside mine, to create that kind of environment,” he said. “So, while other people focus on volunteering and getting stuff done that way, I like to focus on big picture stuff and also making sure there are projects that make people feel like they have not only the right but the responsibility to make things happen.”
Prior to his role as president, Voigt served on the Student Senate’s diversity committee as a member and then the executive assistant for diversity, where he helped develop and organize Peace Dialogues and sought ways to visually display the diversity on the Wartburg campus, which boasts students from 53 countries.
The Newman Civic Fellowship, named for Campus Compact co-founder Frank Newman, is a one-year experience emphasizing personal, professional and civic growth for students who have demonstrated a capacity for leadership and an investment in solving public problems.