Why It Matters: The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation’s (CSF) Collegiate Sportsmen and Women’s Coalition (CSWC) seeks to educate young adults from diverse interests and backgrounds about the importance of hunting, angling, trapping, and recreational shooting to fish and wildlife conservation while also providing them with hands-on education in how to effectively engage in the policy process to protect these traditions.
Highlights:
- Following the successful launch of a CSWC chapter at Mississippi State in the Fall of 2020, CSF is looking to expand this program to other colleges and universities across the country.
- The Collegiate Coalition provides college students with the unique opportunity to engage with other sportsmen and women with a wide variety of outdoor interests while also providing them with the tools to begin effectively engaging with the public policy process.
- Through this, the Collegiate Coalition aims to educate the outdoor sporting community’s next generation of conservation leaders.
On January 14, the Collegiate Sportsmen and Women’s Coalition at Louisiana State University (LSU) was approved and formalized by the University and is now able to start hosting regular meetings on campus. This latest addition to the CSWC network comes after many months of working with LSU students and faculty to bring CSWC to the campus.
The LSU Collegiate Sportsmen and Women’s Coalition is modeled after coalitions already active at Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi and provides a new opportunity to engage college students in supporting our outdoor sporting heritage. The Collegiate Coalition is supported and managed by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation in efforts related to policy education and engagement, as well as the recruitment, retention, and reactivation of sportsmen and women.
CSWC at LSU is led by students Jackson McCain and Nate Duxbury, as well as faculty advisor Bret Collier. Currently, this Coalition has 15 members from Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina New York, California, Colorado, and Texas, most of whom are natural resources and wildlife ecology majors.
“I wanted to bring the CSWC program to LSU for two reasons: the first being to help young adults get hands on experience with the single most important factor in preserving our natural resources: policy making. The second reason I wanted to bring this program to LSU was to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of public policy process for myself. Young adults are the future, and it is crucial we understand how to properly maintain our resources through effective policy making,” said Collegiate Coalition President Jackson McCain. “I believe that CSWC will be an avenue where I, along with my peers, can engage with wildlife policy making at an early stage in our lives, giving us the tools to make effective wildlife policy decisions to preserve our beloved resources.”
The Collegiate Sportsmen and Women’s Coalition aims to ensure that the next generation of conservation leaders have the tools they need to make a positive impact on the outdoor sporting community both now and in their future careers. CSWC at LSU’s Vice President, Nate Duxbury, emphasized that “In essence, my involvement with CSWC isn’t just about safeguarding our outdoor traditions; it’s about nurturing a sustainable legacy for generations to come.”
Through this expansion of the Collegiate Sportsmen and Women’s Coalition program, the LSU Coalition hopes to inspire other colleges and universities to join this community of future conservation leaders. CSF is excited to add LSU to the CSWC network and looks forward to seeing the impact these students make on campus and in their future careers in conservation. Please reach out to Isabella Mucci, CSF’s Collegiate Sportsmen and Women’s Coalition Coordinator, to explore bringing CSWC to a campus near you.
