University of Montana Western Selected for Student Co-Design Initiative
May 26, 2026
The University of Montana Western has been selected as part of the inaugural class of Student Co-Design Teams through Campus Compact. Eight Campus Compact institutions were selected to help develop new models for student voice and shared leadership on campus, within community engagement centers, and through local campus-community partnerships.
Campus Compact is thrilled to announce that the University of Montana Western will take part in our new Student Co-Design Teams program from now until May 2027. The below Campus Compact member institutions will be awarded $5,000 in seed money to fund their student voice and leadership initiatives:
- University of Montana Western
- Utah Valley University
- University of Virginia
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Colorado Boulder
- Pacific University
- Mercer University
- Bates College
Campus Compact knows student leadership and voice are central pillars to effective civic engagement work, campus culture, and community relationships, but we know too many barriers (time, money, support) prevent innovative ideas from staff and students about embedding student leadership and voice from coming to fruition. Campus Compact wants to change that.
Based on visioning from our Student Design Fellows cohort—a two-year fellowship designed to empower students and revolutionize civic leadership development—the Student Co-Design Team initiative was created to offer guidance for institutions that would like to implement student engagement strategies developed by student-led teams. Each Co-Design Team selected has at minimum a 1:1 student-to-staff/faculty ratio on their co-design teams, and students are the leaders and equal decision-makers alongside faculty, administration, and staff from the very start of the process.
“Campus Compact is thrilled to continue to elevate student voice on the national stage through our inaugural Student Co-Design Teams. Building off the proven Student Design Fellows model, these eight institutions are led by brilliant students and dedicated staff working as equal partners to invent, reimagine, or scale best practices in student voice and civic engagement,” said Will Brummett, Director of Student Engagement. “These selected institutions reflect the institutional and regional diversity and perspectives that make Campus Compact strong. We are immensely proud to support these innovative teams as they create sustainable, student-led models that will impact our campuses and communities for years to come.”
The team at the University of Montana Western will consist of Arica Crootof, Michelle Anderson, Ted Montalvo, and Shayla Cluff. Of their project, the team explains:
“Our team will co-design a governance model for the Land, Water, and Sky (LWS) Center at the University of Montana Western that integrates undergraduate students into decision-making. With this funding, we are compensating student leaders to design pathways for student voices into curriculum, community partnerships, and Center priorities. We aim to offer a model of shared governance and lessons learned that can be adapted to other university centers, hubs, and institutes across the country. We feel these outcomes will be particularly relevant for public primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI’s) embedded in rural communities such as our own.”
The eight selected campuses will be provided with Campus Compact staff support (Director, Student Engagement) and will attend monthly meetings with the other Co-Design Teams to share best practices, learn from each other, and capture shared insights.
Thanks to the support of Lumina Foundation, these selected Campus Compact institutions are now able to seed, grow, and launch similar student-voice initiatives on their campuses and create replicable models that can scale across our national network. Campus Compact’s goal is to continue to expand student leadership and voice by growing the student-led design model across member campuses nationwide.
Learn more about the Student Co-Design Teams program: https://compact.org/current-programs/student-programming/student-co-design-teams
ABOUT CAMPUS COMPACT:
Campus Compact is a national coalition of colleges and universities that supports, engages, and challenges higher education to realize its public purpose. Campus Compact empowers colleges and universities to advance their academic and civic missions by partnering with communities to address complex social issues and further equity, justice, and prosperity for all. Founded in 1985, Campus Compact is the nation’s largest and oldest national association solely dedicated to advancing the civic and community engagement mission of higher education. Our members make up a force of thousands of presidents, faculty, researchers, students, and civic and community engagement experts.
Campus Compact envisions colleges and universities as vital agents and architects of a diverse democracy, committed to educating students for responsible citizenship in ways that both deepen their education and improve the quality of community life. We challenge all of higher education to make civic and community engagement an institutional priority. Learn more at compact.org.
