WAVERLY, IOWA (July 30, 2021) -- Conner Ambrosy, of Long Grove, Iowa, was one of nine Wartburg College students selected to spend their summer educating others about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine as a way to increase vaccination rates in their home communities.

The ambassador program was funded by the Interfaith Youth Core to address vaccine-hesitancy concerns across the country. The Wartburg students are among about 2,000 students from 117 colleges nationwide participating in the program. Caryn Riswold, McCoy Family Distinguished Chair in Lutheran Heritage and Mission, is leading the group.

In the spring, the ambassadors participated in an intensive five-hour training-session that focused on community organization, active listening-skills, and COVID-19 vaccine-education, including misconceptions about the vaccine. Students were then tasked with connecting with leaders in their community, oftentimes at churches and schools, to learn about concerns and challenges in the area and explore new opportunities for implementing outreach projects.

"Very early on, our students came face-to-face with the joys and challenges of talking to people about the vaccine," Riswold said. "The joy is being part of the solution. It's a great way to take back some of the control that people felt they lost over the last year. But the challenge was coming face-to-face with those who cited misinformation and conspiracy theories as their reason for not getting vaccinated."

Though overseeing the project took time away from her other summer plans, Riswold said knowing that Wartburg would have these trained ambassadors on campus in the fall was worth it. The students are expected to continue to serve through October. Several of the Faith in the Vaccine Ambassadors said they would pick up where Wartburg's own Public Health Ambassadors left off in the spring, educating their peers about and encouraging them to get the vaccine.

"We must equip more students to have thoughtful and difficult conversations so we can return to a normal sense of campus life," she said. "This is part of the work that needs to be done and will put all of us in a better place in the future."

Wartburg, a four-year liberal-arts college internationally recognized for community engagement, enrolls 1,564 students. Wartburg is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and named after the castle in Germany where Martin Luther took refuge, disguised as a knight, during the stormy days of the Reformation while translating the Bible from Greek into German.

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