Matteson ’23 Wins WIDA’s Letter to Biden Contest

Connor Matteson ’23 penned an open letter to President Biden as part of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy’s (WIDA) essay contest, which prompted college students to share their views on the role the United States should play globally. Matteson’s letter, titled “The World Needs a Democracy That Educates Its Citizens to Lead It” is one of two winning essays published on WIDA’s website.

“Not just in the realm of democratic ideas, but also in the realm of environmentally sustainable economics, the United States should be a laboratory of tomorrow, a place where forward-thinking leaders from around the world can congregate to observe innovation at work and be inspired to implement positive change in their own societies,” Matteson wrote. “In this way, the United States can continue to project the soft power that will ensure not only its own security and prosperity, but also that of the wider community of nations.”

Matteson, a College of Social Studies major at Wesleyan, emphasized the importance of his generation finding the United States’s proper place in the world.

“There’s historically been a tendency in the foreign policy community to be completely focused on the world’s problems while ignoring the fact that our capacity to effectively and constructively engage with those problems is directly tied to whether we have our own house in order,” Matteson said. “I hope my essay’s win is a sign that this is finally starting to change, because this country is at its best when we lead by example.”