Several years ago, some of the faculty at Portland State University began work on a project called Oregon 2050. It took today’s baselines for environmental, social, and other issues and projected what the future might look like if Oregonians kept following future trends. “We realized that in 2050, the people who would be at the height of their careers, having families, leading organizations, are all kids who are in high school now,” said Wendy Willis, director of Oregon’s Kitchen Table, a program in the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State that seeks to get more people involved in the issues that affect them. “What if we put it to them?”
In 2023, Hatfield Futures brought teams of students from all over the state together to come up with projects that could make the future better. At first, the program was mostly conducted via Zoom and other team meetings leading up to a showcase of presentations and in-person work among all the students. This created issues for students in more rural communities who didn’t always have stable internet access. Thanks in part to support from the Roundhouse Foundation, the 2025 program has switched to a week-long camp for the students, hosted at Portland State University. “The program wants to be a summer camp,” Willis said, adding that they plan to continue in this new format moving forward.
Teams are asked to come up with a proposal that might interrupt current trends and bend the curve toward the future the students envision, said Willis. She added, “It gives them a sense of their own agency, that together we can do things and make change.” Future-thinking is hard for all people but vital to learn. Student-participants then return to their communities knowing more about how to create a policy proposal, how governments work, and where to pull the levers to create real change,” Willis explained.
Some of the projects Hatfield Futures’ students have created and worked on include preventing undue burdens on small farms and farmers; protecting the Oregon kelp forest; and how to integrate state and local civics education into the school curriculum, which helps more students understand how their government works and how to propose changes.
Changing the format from a weekend to a week-long summer camp allowed students to get to know each other better. “It’s super important that kids from different parts of the state are exposed to each other,” Willis said, which can reduce bias and better equip these young people to talk to others from different backgrounds later on. The program has worked hard to make sure there’s a mix of kids every year.
The last three years have been so successful for Hatfield Futures, alumni come back to be “helping hands” and work as peer leaders in the program, run workshops, and even judge presentations. For some students, participating in Hatfield Futures was their first time being in a room with other people their age who were interested in advocacy or policy work.
Youth often feel excluded from public decision-making but have the greatest stake in the future. It’s vital that students get to practice using their voices, lest they begin to believe they don’t have one.
Hatfield Futures’ focus on Oregon allows students to reflect on the issues facing their local communities, to think through potential ways to solve them—including unintended consequences which could result—and, most of all, get comfortable advocating for their ideas.
