Throughout her time at DePaul, Ilse has been deeply involved in community service and advocacy. She worked as an intern in 2019 and 2020 at Take Back the Halls, a program that focuses on preventing and providing education about relationship violence among teens.

Ilse has also worked with Every Voice Illinois, a national coalition targeting campus sexual assault through legislation and community work with survivors. In this role, Ilse met with state representatives and other universities interested in the coalition, and was very excited to see the passing of Senate Bill IG10, requiring Illinois institutions conduct and publicly share annual campus climate surveys on sexual violence. She continued volunteering with the coalition until this past October.

Since then, she has been focusing on her work with Mothers of Color Handling Academia (MOCHA), where she is the sole intern dedicated to the organization within the DePaul Women’s Center, has worked to reinstate student-parent resources, and has created an Instagram account dedicated to promoting such resources. As a student-parent herself, Ilse is determined to help build a better support system within DePaul for student-parents to overcome the barriers and inequalities experienced by parents striving for a degree.

Ilse says: “Other young change agents can tap into their leadership potential as well by reflecting on their lives, their experiences, and their communities. What is it that does not seem right to them? What is one thing they wish they could change? Once they can pinpoint that, it should no longer be a desire to wish upon change, but a call to action“