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The Institute of Politics saw a spring term record 905 applications as attention begins to shift to the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential elections.
The historic number — marking 100 more than previous spring semesters — comes in a year when more than half the world’s population will vote in an election.
IOP President Pratyush Mallick ’25 credited the surge in membership to the 2024 U.S. elections and the democratic processes happening around the globe.
“People see the election coming up, and they see the IOP as the space they want to engage with,” Mallick said.
“I think that is just a combination of winds that are going into getting people to get excited and get energized about joining the IOP,” he added.
Adithya V. Madduri ’27 — who joined the IOP’s Harvard Votes Challenge and Harvard Civics programs this spring — said he was “inspired by it being an election year.”
“I think it’s really cool to get involved with the Harvard Votes Challenge to encourage and get out the vote for a lot of these elections,” Madduri said.
To accommodate the boom in membership, the IOP has created two new student positions — the Directors of Organizing and Special Programs — to “be a structure of support mechanism” and for “specific collaborations between programs,” according to Mallick.
The IOP is also currently in the process of hiring new staff to support the student advisory committee in organizing broader programming, according to Mallick.
“We are finalizing the hiring for our Internships and Career Services director,” Mallick said. “We’ll have a new Student Programs director, which has been missing for nearly a year now or just under a year now.”
Mallick said the IOP’s has also seen an increase in institutional support from the Harvard Kennedy School, including a $3,000 budget increase.
HVC co-chair Jordan D. Schwartz ’27 said that the surge has allowed the program to kickstart a new “civic engagement rep program” that enlists members of other groups — including athletic teams and undergraduate Houses — to promote voting in the 2024 elections.
IOP Vice President Ethan C. Kelly ’25 said the larger cohort has led the SAC to “gear a lot of our programming towards the relevant politics that we face today, whether that’s international or national politics.”
Erik Dalaker ’27 — a new spring member of the IOP’s Fellows and Study Groups and Coalition for Global Affairs programs — praised the organization’s heightened focus on international issues.
“It’s been previously accused of not being as welcoming to international students just because the nature of American politics,” Dalaker, who is from Norway, said. “But now, it’s gotten a lot better.”
Mallick said the IOP has also launched a “Members at Large” initiative designed for students to affiliate with the group without needing to enroll with one of its 14 programs, as well as broadening access to its Delegate Program, which sends students to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
Kelly said he was “extremely excited” about the influx of new and returning IOP members.
“Seeing a larger spring semester than we saw even going into the 2020 election — into the 2016 election and all the elections and years prior — just continues to show that there is a very, very big need and interest for politics on campus,” Kelly said.
—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.
—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.
