Capstoning and Showcasing Ireland

Teagan Mayr and Sophia Heslep, both minors in civic and community engagement, and both graduating in May 2025, traveled to Ireland last summer.

Teagan, majoring in political science and broadcast journalism, traveled as a Perreault Fellow to intern with Think-tank for Action on Social Change (TASC). Learn more about Teagan’s experience.

Sophia, an education policy major, took part in an education abroad program, “The Culture of Deliberative Democracy in Ireland,” CAS 299H. Learn more about Sophia’s experience.

Both Teagan and Sophia used their Ireland work as their supervised field experience requirement for the minor, and then extended their learning to complete the minor’s capstone, during fall 2024.

Teagan’s capstone consisted of a paper titled, “Influential factors for youth development leading to civic engagement in Ireland and the United States – a comparison.” In her work, Teagan examined 6 key childhood influences that play a role in determining their degree of civic engagement: family, education, economy, social, youth programs, and global. Teagan also built a website based on the paper to more easily share her work.

Sophia was captivated by the political acumen and engagement of Irish citizens, and used her capstone paper titled “The possibilities of democracy: how Ireland can teach the United States a Lesson” to articulate her understanding of the ways history, political infrastructure, and identity informed positive engagement and a belief that having a voice both matters and is essential to democracy. Sophia also explored the potential for contentious issues to fracture trust in government, and the resilience of the Irish not to be discouraged to advocate for change.

Both Teagan and Sophia will present their work in the annual Undergraduate Showcase later this semester, hosted by the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences.