Elon University alumna Austin Moore ’22 returned to campus Oct. 1 as a part of the speaker series titled “Alumni Voices: Conversations with Political Insiders on the 2024 Elections.”
The speaker series was organized by professor of political science Jill Auditori and professor of journalism Israel Balderas as a way to inform students about the upcoming 2024 elections.
“What we’re pitching is that we want to bring alumni who are working in elections in 2024,” Balderas told Elon News Network. “It’s not that we want to talk about elections, but we want to inform people.”
The first speaker in the series, Moore graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science and international and global studies. She currently works as the deputy field director for Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s campaign and decided to return to be a resource for current students.
“Politics is very much a game of who’s who, and I’m really passionate about getting the word out there that it doesn’t have to be that way, and it’s not always that way,” Moore told Elon News Network. “Now that I work in politics, I hope to be a resource to other, younger people who are coming in.”
During the event, Moore spoke about her own personal journey in politics and how much she learned once she started working in campaigns when she was hired in her senior year of college.
“I remember being in Oaks, I was like, ‘What did I get myself into?’” Moore said. “I had no campaign experience. I didn’t know anything. It was really a trial by fire.”
Moore said the biggest help for her when first getting involved in politics was putting herself out there to her local representatives.
“I just reached out to my state rep,” Moore said. “I emailed her, and I was like, ‘Hello, do you have any opportunities? I’m a student,’ and it worked. In that internship, it really taught me that a lot of things you might think the politician would do are actually done by people like me behind the scenes.”
Following Moore’s chronicle of her journey into politics, Auditori and Balderas opened the event for questions. Balderas asked Moore about how she remains confident and how she feels that Elon prepared her.
“It’s really just being yourself and showing up and being confident,” Moore said. “There’s value in learning and being somewhere new. I think it just taught me that if I do go somewhere else and fall back a little, people have been doing this forever and they have the ways that they do things.”
Moore was also asked about how to handle the outcomes of the election the next day on Nov. 6.
“I now have decided that I have my main media sources, and I try to diversify it, but I’ll keep the notifications on only breaking news for them,” Moore said. “I can’t take it all on myself, because I used to try, but you do have to stay aware of everything. Now I try to balance, because it does get blurry with the personal and professional a lot, and I’m not trying to do politics 24/7, so you have some sort of boundary.”
Sophomore Adrianna Stapleton said she felt inspired after hearing about Moore’s journey in politics.
“I’m a political science major so it’s something that I am interested in,” Stapleton said. “Just hearing her talk and getting to hear her opinion on the work that she’s done so far definitely helped me to figure out what I wanted to do.”
Stapelton also said she was glad to hear from an alumni who not only had similar interests as her but also looked like her.
“I think I feel a stronger connection, in a way,” Stapelton said. “We both have been to Elon, we both experienced the same things, also that there were Black women who went to Elon is especially important as well. It just kind of gives me almost someone to look up to and someone just to aspire and guide my life.”
The next alumni speaker will be Maria Ramirez Uribe ’20 to discuss misinformation and disinformation Oct. 22 with time and place to be determined.