Profile for Emily Whitney

Eta Sigma Gamma - Beta Phi; Anders Cedergren, Dan Duquette, Keely Rees, Lori Reichel, Katie Wagoner and Emily Whitney, all Health Ed., Health Promotion;and Catherine Gangi, MPH - CHE; presented "3rd Annual Health Education Advocacy Experience in Madison, WI" at Health Education Advocacy Experience on Feb. 27 in Madison, WI. HEHP and Eta Sigma Gamma provided a two day advocacy training for 35 public health education graduate and undergraduate majors. Students then visited over 30 offices of Senators and Assembly persons discussing and educating on the importance of communicable disease prevention, control and funding for the state of Wisconsin.

Lydia Rivera and Bethany Starry, both BS. Community Health Education; Anders Cedergren, Keely Rees and Emily Whitney, all CL-45; and Catherine Gangi and Lauren Lube, both MPH- Community Health Education; co-authored the article "From Classroom to Capitol: Building Advocacy Capacity Through State-Level Advocacy Experiences" in "Health Promotion Practice" published on Nov. 6, 2016 by Sage. This commentary provides insight from Community Health Education and Master of Public Health students on the benefits of participating in a state-level Advocacy Experience and provides a theoretical framework for increased advocacy intention among students as a result of participating in a state-level Advocacy Experience. Providing students the opportunity to translate what they learn about advocacy in the classroom into advocacy in action with policy makers is vital to the career development of our future health education professionals and is key to increasing advocacy capacity within our profession.