Miami, May 2, 2024 – Miami Dade College (MDC) Wolfson Campus student Arquímedes (Archie) Rivero has been named a 2024-25 Newman Civic Fellow, the highest honor for student engagement leadership. Rivero was among 13,000 students who graduated from MDC last month. He will join 142 student civic leaders from 38 states, Washington, D.C., and Mexico as part of the 2024 cohort.
“I feel honored, not just to be the Newman Civic Fellow for Miami Dade College, but to consider myself a beneficiary of its platform as Democracy’s College,” Rivero said. “Day in and day out, I have been motivated to continue my student-oriented work throughout my various student leadership capacities because of how formative this institution has been to me. It wouldn’t have been possible without having received administrative mentorship and guidance from The Honors College, the Changemaking Institute, Student Life and college and campus leadership. They have taught me what it means to be a leader and to work with others in mind always.”
Born and raised in Miami, Rivero, who is of Venezuelan and Spanish heritage, has a keen interest in diplomacy, leadership and service. He is passionate about using his life experience to advocate for human rights domestically and abroad. At MDC, he developed an extensive and exemplary track record of engagement and civic leadership in addition to maintaining a 4.0 GPA in MDC’s rigorous Honors College.
His dynamic tenure at the College included serving as Student Government Association (SGA) President at the Wolfson Campus, engaging in nonpartisan voter education, and voter engagement work through the Civic Influencer program. He also served as the student representative for MDC’s Board of Trustees and dedicated more than 300 hours of community service, which earned him the President’s Volunteer Service Award. Volunteer activities included helping to organize an Iftar dinner with MDC’s Jaffer Institute to educate his peers about Ramadan and helping lead campus and community food distribution programs. Rivero was also selected to represent MDC and The Honors College at the Global Citizenship Alliance Seminar in Salzburg, Austria.
He considers his work as Changemaker Ambassador, one of his greatest accomplishments at MDC.
“It is an honor that I have held during my entire time at MDC that has enabled me to think more conscientiously and develop student-centered initiatives that leave a lasting impact on MDC’s student body,” Rivero said. “As a Changemaking Ambassador, I have leveraged my positions in Student Government to develop student feedback initiatives, change making workshops, and a service-centered approach to student leadership.”
His academic work also earned him important recognitions, including the Hites Transfer Scholarship, Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s most prestigious and largest scholarship. He is also a semifinalist for the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, a highly competitive national scholarship that awards students up to $55,000 a year to complete their bachelor’s degree.
In the future, Rivero aspires to become a diplomat and a lawyer with a focus on International Development and work for organizations such as the United States Agency for International Development and the United Nations Human Rights Commission, as well as non-governmental organizations.
The Newman Civic Fellowship is a year-long program from Campus Compact, a Boston-based nonprofit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education. Students selected to stand out for their commitment to creating positive change in communities locally and worldwide.
The fellowship provides various learning and networking opportunities that emphasize personal, professional, and civic growth and the skills and connections they need to create large-scale positive change. To learn more, visit www.compact.org/newman-civic-fellowship.
Campus Compact is a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. Campus Compact supports institutions in fulfilling their public purposes by deepening their ability to improve community life and educate students about civic and social responsibility. As the largest national higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement, we provide professional development to administrators and faculty to enable them to engage effectively, facilitate national partnerships connecting campuses with critical issues in their local communities, build pilot programs to test and refine promising models in engaged teaching and scholarship, celebrate and cultivate student civic leadership, and convene higher education institutions and partners beyond higher education to share knowledge and develop collective capacity. Visit www.compact.org.