Why Georgia’s universities should treat civic leadership like STEM

When I first joined Georgia State University’s student newspaper, The Signal, I earned $400 a month. The less-than-minimum-wage rate was measly, sure. But after months of unpaid graveyard shifts at the student radio station, it felt like big bucks. That stipend helped me pay rent while I learned the lessons that would soon lead me to a career on The New York Times’ strategic programs team.

I wasn’t alone in this experience.

Daniel Varitek is founder of the Kenneth Lockett Foundation, which aims to develop student leaders. (Courtesy)

Take Evan Malbrough, who earned the same $400 monthly stipend as a communications director in student government. That modest support made his student leadership possible, building skills he would later use to lead one of the most successful youth poll worker campaigns in Georgia history. Today, he works as a political consultant in Washington.

Or consider Hamza Rahman, who earned a $540 stipend as student body vice president. Shortly after graduating in 2020, Rahman played a lead role in unionizing the Democratic Party of Georgia. He later joined the Biden administration as a political appointee.

What united the three of us wasn’t just ambition, but the fact that someone had invested in our ability to lead. Rahman, Malbrough and I all agree we learned far more about leadership through hands-on experience than we ever expected.

And it’s because those student leadership roles mirrored the challenges of civic life: balancing limited budgets, representing diverse communities, navigating conflict and learning to compromise without losing conviction. They showed us leadership isn’t about ambition or age — it’s about service. When we succeeded, our classmates felt it. When we failed, they held us accountable. That kind of feedback loop is hard to replicate anywhere else in higher education.

But those investments are no longer guaranteed. Across Georgia’s campuses, institutional support for student leadership is inconsistent, even as the expectations placed on those leaders continue to grow.

As a result, student leadership is increasingly out of reach for those who can’t afford to work for free. And when those opportunities vanish, we lose the very pipeline that produces tomorrow’s community organizers, voting rights activists and journalists.

We must begin treating student leadership as an essential skill — one that can be taught, cultivated and rewarded, just like math and science.

To make that vision real, Georgia’s colleges have an opportunity to make systemic investments in civic leadership the same way they do with STEM or athletics.

That means making student leadership roles accessible regardless of income by funding stipends that reflect the real workload of those roles. It means offering credit-bearing leadership courses that treat coalition-building and governance as skills worth studying. It means providing structured mentorship for student leaders and forming intentional partnerships with civic institutions so students learn how public service really works.

Universities wouldn’t expect students to master organic chemistry through unpaid extracurriculars. Why should we expect them to learn civic leadership skills that way? This urgency is why I co-founded the Kenneth Lockett Foundation, a nonprofit focused on developing Georgia’s next generation of civic leaders. Our flagship program — the Truth and Justice Fellowship — is a full-time, paid placement for undergraduates in Georgia’s civic institutions, from courts to newsrooms to nonprofits. Fellows receive mentorship, professional development and a livable wage that makes public service financially viable.

It’s a powerful model — but no one nonprofit can replace the responsibility of our state’s universities to invest in their own students.

Lockett, for whom our foundation is named, spent years working at Dunkin’ to keep himself afloat financially. That drive enabled him to take unpaid or low-wage roles — as a clerk for the Henry County Board of Commissioners, an intern at a law firm, and even as a student journalist and student government representative.

Kenneth Lockett's grit and determination resulted in a foundation bearing his name. (Contributed)

Lockett’s grit was extraordinary, but it should not be the price of admission into civic leadership. Too many students with talent and ambition are locked out simply because they can’t afford to work for free — that means Georgia’s civic institutions lose out, too. Lockett died suddenly in 2022 at 22 years old, just months before he was set to graduate.