Lindsey Sullivan, GSAS ’22, knew she wanted to be involved with politics when she came to Fordham University as a freshman from Walpole, Massachusetts. She went on to major in history and minor in political science, and is on track to complete the accelerated program for a masters in elections and campaign management in four years, even though the program is built to be finished in five years. In her free time she likes to read, go boxing and hang out with friends. Her contributions to Fordham are numerable, as she has been an advocate for students on campus through Residence Hall Association (RHA) as a former Loschert president; vice president of Health and Security of United Student Government (USG); member, co-chair and later chair of the Committee on Sexual Misconduct (CSM) and co-founder of the Political Union at Fordham. 

In her junior year, Sullivan was elected to serve as the vice president of Health and Security for USG whose responsibilities included chairing CSM and being a liaison with Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS), the University Health Center, FUEMS and Public Safety. Sullivan spent three years on CSM and empahsized its importance saying: “I joined the Committee on Sexual Misconduct because supporting survivors of sexual assault and facilitating justice and healing for survivors at Fordham is a top priority for me. Gender-based violence and sexual assault, unfortunately, remains prevalent on Fordham’s campus and on campuses across the country. It is essential that we stand with survivors and stand up against unjust systems that seek to silence survivor’s voices and stories.” 

In 2021, Sullivan won the Club Leader of the Year Award for her campus involvement and bringing back Fresh Check Day. “Fresh Check Day is a daylong mental health awareness event for students” which involved collaborations with over 20 clubs and departments who did different programming surrounding mental health. “There was also free food, a food truck, giveaways, and it was really successful because we had about 300 students come through and participate,” said Sullivan. In the same year, she also co-founded the Political Union at Fordham, which is “a non-partisan space for people to have nuanced political discussion” and “where people come with different perspectives and have respectful, in-depth conversations.”

This passion for politics is what drove Sullivan to choose the masters program in elections and campaign management. She described her decision saying, “I knew I wanted to do something political for my masters … I realized because I had certain AP credits from high school and I had fulfilled certain requirements already that I would be able to accelerate the accelerated program a little bit more.” However, it was more than just convenience that attracted Sullivan. “I’ve always been really invested in progressive political organizing, particularly like grassroots campaigning, so I feel like getting an education in that is important for me to continue doing the work that I’m most passionate about, and also have that toolbox to know what I’m doing when working with future campaigns.” Sullivan will graduate in August 2022, and since the program is on hiatus, she will be one of the last people to graduate Fordham with this degree, and one of the few who did it in four years. 

Sullivan also advocates for progressive politics off campus. She got involved with a group called Our Bronx Revolution in 2019. With this group she worked to get Bernie Sanders the primary election nomination in 2019. She explained they did this by “mobilizing people to vote, getting them registered and talking to the Bronx [community] about progressive ideas.” As a current member, she works to inform the Bronx community about election candidates for the city council and their progressive platforms.

Sullivan is keeping busy this year with an internship with the Fordham Law School Center on National Security (CNS) and a research position with Dr. Osei-Opare in the history department. In her internship she does policy research “looking at federal mandatory minimums for sentencing and how that affected terrorist cases, what cases they appear in and their impact.” Sullivan’s research position involves helping with research for Dr. Osei-Opare’s new book, “Socialist De-Colony: Ghana’s Cold War Project.” The book focuses on the way socialism affected Ghana after it was decolonized from Britain.

Graduating in four years from a five-year program is impressive, but it’s definitely not the least of Lindsey Sullivan’s accomplishments while here at Fordham.Though it was busy, Sullivan managed it all saying, “I was able to accomplish these things because I really wanted to make a positive impact during my time at Fordham. Mental health and CSM initiatives are very personal to me, and I wanted to create an atmosphere where my peers felt supported and empowered when discussing these difficult issues.”