Madwa-Nika Cadet (MPP’17) was helping shape GU Politics’ programming and student initiatives from its first year, which was also the first year of her Master’s in Public Policy degree at the McCourt School. Today, she is a member of the National Assembly of Quebec, which she was elected to in 2022, representing Bourassa-Sauvé as a member of the Quebec Liberal Party.
Madwa-Nika was a member of the inaugural Student Advisory Board, helped found GU Votes, and credits Georgetown and GU Politics with shaping her views on public service.
“Going to Georgetown specifically was one of the best decisions that I could have made,” Madwa-Nika said. She was aware of buzz on campus and around DC about the new Institute, and said “it was very purposeful for me to try to get involved with GU politics, even before anyone verbally told me about it.”
When she came to Georgetown in 2015, she had a Bachelor’s degree, a Law degree, and an MBA from universities in Canada and a fascination with U.S. politics that led her to choose Georgetown and Washington, D.C. to study public policy. She always knew eventually she wanted to go back home to Canada and have an impact there, but really wanted to build a multidisciplinary background and understand a diversity of perspectives.
“I thought, oh, it would be amazing to be there the year that America elects its first woman president!” she said. “That’s not exactly what happened, but it was incredible to witness the historical moment.”
Because she knew she wanted to be involved in politics and public service long term, she felt Georgetown and GU Politics were a perfect fit. She said every day in her career as a legislator, she feels grateful for her background in public policy and the diversity of perspective and conversation GU Politics fostered.
Madwa-Nika was involved with GU Politics from its very beginning in 2015 and was an integral part of formulating its student initiatives. She was the first Graduate Co-Chair on the Student Advisory Board, interviewing some of the first classes of GU Politics Fellows, collaborating with undergraduate students and staff, and engaging with guests and Fellows throughout the Institute’s first two years.
She said all of the access to politicians and public servants was incredible, especially as an international student, and her conversations with Martin O’Malley, who was a Fall 2016 Fellow, have influenced her throughout her career.
“I did one of his office hours and asked him about his idea of public service. And I remember feeling how fortunate I was to be 25 or 26 and getting to be with an aspiring presidential candidate and getting to have this one-on-one advice on what it means to be a public servant and how to always put it first. We talked about how public service and power were different things, but power was something that had to be used for public service.”
Madwa-Nika also co-founded Georgetown student voting initiative GU Votes along with fellow international public policy student Naomi Lim (MPP’17). GU Votes, GU Politics’ student-led initiative working to enhance the voting culture at Georgetown, came from the idea that student voter registration would increase if the platform students had to access for grades and class registration could also register them to vote.
“A lot of students don’t come from the area — they’re out of state, so they have to register to be able to vote. We needed to have something like this to increase the possibility of students registering. It’s probably the thing that I’m the most proud of because I know that it still exists 10 years later. There was another team just a year later of undergrad students who were really into GU Votes and wanted to get involved, taking over the initiative and making sure that we had all the information to get this going. That’s definitely a thing only GU Politics could create on campus.”
With the help of GU Votes, eligible Georgetown student voter participation rose over 50% between 2014 and 2018.
Once she graduated, Madwa-Nika stayed in D.C. for an additional year working for the World Bank before returning home. “It was clear that I was ready to jump into the official world of politics and make that my day-to-day job, 24/7.” There, she worked as policy advisor for the Canadian Minister of Innovation until, in 2022, she got an unexpected opportunity to run for office and took it.
“This was not how I imagined starting my year at the time, but I decided to jump and see what would happen, and I got elected.”
She said her experiences with GU Politics and being a student in the U.S. have been invaluable in her career as a legislator, and she especially values the bipartisan conversations across the aisle that are a staple of GU Politics’ programming.
“To this day, I’m able to have more perspective when I’m presented with a policy challenge because I think of everything I learned at Georgetown from people who came from all across the U.S., being on the Student Advisory Board with both undergrads and grad students, people who came from different states who had different experiences but were all passionate about politics. GU Politics allowed me to test new ideas I’d never been confronted with because I was literally from another country. It’s extremely meaningful in terms of the skill sets I was able to develop, the personal relationships that I still hold still.”
Madwa-Nika said what really stays with her about her GU Politics experience is the ability of students, including the members of the first SAB, to be friends despite different ideologies, respecting each other and wanting to understand different ideas.
“At the end of the day, to get anything through in politics you need to be able to build these relationships. If you don’t want cynicism to take over, you want to be able to still elevate the debate. I think it matters for students to think that public service is a good thing, but politics can be too — to be the first ambassadors of it. I do see how maybe in today’s world, it looks like it’s more rewarding to be part of the polarization system. But I do think there is a long and staying effect for people who want to respect each other as human beings and want to respect the fact that someone else might have different ideas.”
Over GU Politics’ first decade, it has remained committed to facilitating conversations that reach across the aisle, foster respect for different viewpoints, and reinforce passion for public service.
“That’s something that I really appreciated, and I probably think that students appreciate even more now. We always made sure that we had both Democrats and Republicans, and we had access to a diversity of points of view. And fast forward 10 years later, when we think of how polarized our world has become, it’s something that is truly, truly essential.”
