From the president
Harry Hou ’25, a sophomore student from North Wales, Pennsylvania, is deeply passionate, intellectually curious, and civically engaged – both on and off campus. An advisory board member of the Intercultural Center at Swarthmore College and a Student Academic Mentor, Harry has made his presence, poise, and leadership known on campus. Off campus, Harry was an Advocacy and Outreach Intern with the Pennsylvania Prison Society from winter 2021 through summer 2022. Among Harry’s many contributions there, Harry drafted and reviewed materials for their education and advocacy work, including a primer for legislators on their top legislative priority: ending the $5 inmate medical copay. For the past year, Harry has been an active volunteer with Chester Eastside, Inc. (CEI) where he organized and led working group sessions to finalize the website’s design, content, testing, and deployment, and implemented a non-partisan voter outreach program in Chester, Pennsylvania – Chester Votes – through a partnership with the Committee of Seventy’s WeVote Program.
Personal Statement
Purposeful engagement begins with a series of good questions. An interest in better understanding the issues that face the communities I grew up around have collapsed the boundaries between classroom and reality: theoretical principles and lived experiences inform each other. From supporting a social services community organization to working alongside local civic leaders, I aspire to perfect my conception of good citizenship-leadership. The end will be impossible to reach, but the pursuit remains worthy.