- May 14, 2025
- More articles By Annie Krakower
- Photos by Riley N. Sims
WELL BEFORE SHE HOSTED political fundraisers, worked on candidate campaigns or was even old enough to head to the ballot box, Marsha Laufer ’64 found her lifelong passion in an assignment from her seventh-grade civics teacher.
The task was simple: Read the party platforms and choose a side for a class debate. It encouraged Laufer to ask her parents about their politics for the first time.
“That background facilitated a conversation and growing political awareness,” she says. “And later in life, it stimulated my recognition of the significant need for and importance of civics education.”
Now, she and her husband, Henry Laufer, hope to inspire similar political interest and involvement among the next generation of voters. The couple’s $6 million gift to UMD’s Maryland Democracy Initiative (MDI), announced in May, will support projects to boost civic literacy and democratic engagement in K-12 classrooms, higher ed and beyond.
“One of the goals of civics education has to be that young people leave these classes and interactions with the knowledge that their voice makes a difference,” Marsha Laufer says.
MDI, a nonpartisan program launched in 2023 with funding from a Grand Challenges Impact Award, incorporates expertise from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, College of Education, Philip Merrill College of Journalism and School of Public Policy to encourage civic participation and tackle threats to democracy.
That mission resonated with Henry and Marsha Laufer, the latter of whom left her career as a speech-language pathologist to become a full-time political activist during New York’s 2000 U.S. Senate race, when she joined Hillary Clinton’s ultimately successful campaign. She later opened the first Democratic campaign headquarters on Long Island’s North Shore and chaired her local Democratic committee for eight years.
They became MDI’s first donors last year with two $100,000 gifts, funding voter research and mobilization efforts and establishing the Laufer Democracy Internship to place UMD students at nonpartisan voter mobilization nonprofits. Their latest contribution supports the creation of teaching materials, research on effective instructional methods and development of training for educators at all levels to incorporate civic learning opportunities.
“This new gift will really help us focus on that lifespan of learning to be civically engaged,” says Lena Morreale Scott, MDI principal investigator and director of the Civic Education and Engagement Initiative in the College of Education.
That includes building on Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum, a professional development program that assists UMD faculty in integrating civic learning into their courses.
“We are so grateful for the Laufers’ generous gift, which supports invaluable teaching and learning opportunities that engage students at all levels in maintaining a thriving democracy,” said Jennifer King Rice, senior vice president and provost.
Ultimately, the goal is to establish a national model and broaden the program’s long-term impact.
“We need an educated electorate,” Laufer says. “Maryland has the resources, the quality of professionalism, the dedication and the knowledge to be able to affect this.”
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