Rice students to compete in 'Up to Us'

By Jieya Wen     12/3/13 6:00pm

A team of five Rice University students was selected for the Up to Us competition and will compete against 23 teams from other universities across the nation to educate their peers about the effects of the country's federal debt, according to team leader Maggie Edmunds.

"Up to Us is a program run by Net Impact, the Clinton Global Initiative and the Peterson Foundation," Edmunds, a Hanszen College sophomore, said. "Teams were selected to run [an] awareness campaign about the national debt. The campaign will begin on Jan. 21 and last until Feb. 21."

The competition rules stipulate teams will have to work within a $2,000 budget, team deputy leader Giacomo Frateschi said.

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"Teams' campus [campaigns] are designed to educate their student peers on our long-term federal debt, how it could affect their economic opportunities and what their generation can do to have a voice," Frateschi, a Duncan College junior said. 

According to Edmunds, the team, currently being trained by Net Impact, is working on their campaign proposal, recruiting ambassadors from residential college and finalizing their budget.

"We are going to be publishing videos on Facebook of different professors talking about their expertise and how the American economy is going to be affected by the global economic crisis," Edmunds said. "We also have events such as TA sessions with [Rice club] Moneythink that will talk about how to write a budget and how to keep a budget. We are thinking about doing a corny pick-up line competition on Valentine's Day based on the national debt, doing a halftime show in a basketball game, doing polls, game shows."

According to Frateschi, the campaign will be judged on a variety of criteria, including Facebook visibility, civic engagement and campaign creativity. 

"The winner of the competition receives $10,000 and a chance to attend the Clinton Global Initiative University conference," Frateschi said. "We plan to reinvest that money into student programs at Rice; some ideas have included creating an investment fund to teach students responsible financial practices."

The other team members are Hanszen sophomore Rachel Garber, Duncan sophomore Sean Leong and Hanszen junior Larson Rogers.

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