“Advocacy I think is the whole game! And writing is my vehicle for getting advocacy done,” says Samantha Reid, winner of the 2024 CHESS Dean’s Alumni Award.
When Reid was first applying to college, she didn’t have a clear vision of what her path would be. She considered other Chicago institutions but ultimately settled on Roosevelt. When she entered, Reid didn’t know that Ƶ was a social justice institution. However, the RU mission eventually helped steer her towards political advocacy.
Currently senior director for digital engagement and advocacy at the Center for American Progress, Reid also freelances for Ms., Teen Vogue and Allure. Prior to her current role, Reid served as digital director for Patients for Affordable Drugs. She also interned at USA Today.
A thread running through much of Reid’s writing and advocacy is concern for the financial and physical welfare of people with chronic diseases. She has spoken to the FDA and the U.S. Congress about such issues as the profound impact high drug costs have on the lives of those who depend on them. Reid, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in 2010, frequently about her experiences.
Celebrating her RU Alumni Award, Reid says, “It’s nice when a place you got a lot out of and put a lot into recognizes it.” She reflects fondly on her time at Roosevelt, highlighting numerous opportunities. Reid worked at the academic advising office for her entire college career, volunteered as a Writing Center tutor and contributed as an editor for the Torch. Reid says she learned how to manage time, create agendas, conduct interviews and meetings and design digital content. These hard and soft skills inform her work today.
Reid considered a secondary education minor and even completed student teaching. She served as a student instructor for an ACP 250 Journalism course taught by Anne-Marie Cusac. Reid says she loved working with younger students, teaching them skills she had recently learned herself. Reid says she misses teaching but is grateful for her current position. She reflects that in “every job there is some amount of teaching and mentoring, so that is a lot of my day-to-day now.”
When Reid first told her parents about selecting an English major, they were nervous. While her own vision of working as a staff writer in a magazine has not (yet) come to be, Reid’s English degree allows her to inspire people’s emotions with writing that has the power to change minds. “I think advocacy is so fun because you get to create change and actually have meaningful impact,” Reid says. “But it is also a really challenging way to write because you are not just writing for yourself as an audience, you’re writing for the people that you’re trying to convince.”
This spring, Reid was surprised to hear she had received the Ƶ Dean’s Alumni Award for her incredible work in affordable drug advocacy. “I have such happy, warm memories at Roosevelt,” Reid says. “So it’s nice to have that reciprocal feeling that it was not just a place that I had a great time. I had some sort of impact on it while I was there, which is amazing!”
She gives her thanks to the people who contributed the most to her success. Reid could not say enough good things about her gratitude to the Roosevelt English program. The professors cultivated in her the “ability to talk out ideas with other people, which I think was so huge and that has inspired me in all areas of my life,” Reid says.
She specifically mentions Regina Buccola, now Dean of the College of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. Reid took three classes with Buccola, including entry-level British Commonwealth Literature and Witchcraft in Early Modern Drama.
“There were definitely times when I was a 20-year-old just sitting in the back of her class half asleep, scrolling Twitter,” Reid says. “And she was always so kind and so genuinely interested in getting us to care about the things. Rather than like, ‘Hey, wake up. We have to do this,’” Buccola would lead by enthusiasm. “We’re going to learn about something that is interesting and we’re going to do it in a cool way.” Reid credits Buccola for literature she still references in conversations with such statements as, “Oh, let me tell you about the Malleus Maleficarum.” On a larger scale, Buccola had a massive impact on what Reid understood education to be.
Samantha Reid sees how different her life is from what she thought it would be 10 years ago, and she couldn’t be happier for it. “Trusting the process and not being too rigid about what I wanted to do or when I was going to do it has really helped me,” Reid says, because the flexibility and trust enable her to be excited “about new opportunities.”
Reid advises Roosevelt students to do work that feels good and has passion in it. The opportunities, Reid says, will come.
