UDems Rock CDA
By Marcus Ceniceros
Let me start by saying, I had an amazing trip to our nation's capitol this past weekend. As I posted a week ago, I went to DC to attend the College Democrats of America National Convention. It was the first time I attended, and unless anyone knows otherwise, the first time a UT kid has gone in a long time. I promise to post all about it very soon, but I wanted to let you know the big news first.
The University Democrats of UT-Austin received the Honorable Mention in the category of CDA National Chapter of the Year!! Only one group was above us, the Brown University Democrats of Rhode Island, who won 2005 Chapter of the Year. CDA has over 1,200 chapters and is the official college outreach of the DNC.
Brown had an amazing presentation and did a lot of great work. I was told the decision was very close and took almost two hours. It came down to the amount of community service hours put in by both groups. So, the bar has been set for President Alex Hunt and the rest of the group this year. Let's win it next year!
The CDA recognition comes after being named "2005 Most Outstanding Organization" by the UT-Leadership Board. I can't begin to say how proud I am of all the members and how grateful I am to all the supports across campus and Austin. These recognitions go out to the people who worked hard for us, and we want to say thank you for that.
I will update soon with some stories from convention (including finding a die-hard burntorange report fan from up east), video of Senator Hillary Clinton, and information about how to download a podcast I recorded with Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards' daughter Cate.
Update: Texan article here, nice stuff Marcus. -KT
Posted by Marcus Ceniceros at July 26, 2005 10:50 PM
| TrackBack
Amazing job to Marcus and all of you-- I was seriously impressed and unsurprised that our two chapters were up there neck-and-neck. Especially since, as the judges seem to have noted, we shared a lot of the same strengths from where I sat(building a relationship with the state party and other schools, state legislative action, and so forth).
And indeed the bar has been set for you in more ways than one-- last year our first time attending the CDA convention in recent yeras and in presenting for Chapter of the Year, and we were told that we came close as well (Smith College won last time), so it just goes to show that another year of hard work can pay off. Not of course to say that my successors at Brown (I graduated in May) will be letting up and letting you walk away with it next year. But hey, even though there was a lot of shady politicking and competition going on during this convention, this kind of thing is definitely healthy for all of our chapters and for the Democratic Party in general. So let the race for next year begin!
