A Voice for Justice: Autumn Kern Named YWCA Young Woman of Achievement

“The award was a surprise, but it was a great reminder and validation of where I am, what I've done, and where I’ll continue to go.”

Autumn Kern (’28) has been named YWCA’s Young Woman of Achievement – but hold your applause! While this award speaks volumes to her character, it is a humble accolade for Kern, whose actions tell the truth of passionate voices.

A Spokane native, Kern took justified strides long before cementing her respect for Jesuit values and enrolling into Gonzaga. Still on the path she forged years ago, it’s inevitable, Kern will keep walking into earnest respect from the communities she engages with.

Kern, a political science major, is also passionate about Gonzaga’s environmental course curriculum. Between her political and environmental school of thought, Kern continues pursuing fluency in Spanish. And there, at the center of Kern's education, is her passion for human rights and social justice. To actualize her dreams, Kern explains that she is no more strategic than spontaneous. She often trusts what sparks her interests, experimenting outside of her original toolbox.

“I think being able to be aware and identify areas of injustice has just always been how I viewed the world. So, as I got older, finding ways to act responsibility and ethically in response to those areas of injustice is something that has guided me,” Kern notes.

Kern’s topical experience began when she was 17, interning with the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, playing a critical role towards a policy that restructured Spokane’s resources towards mental health care, addiction treatment and job training for struggling communities.

For Kern, what’s most impactful about her endeavors is standing in solidarity with others. Employed and engaged at the Unity Multicultural Education Center (UMEC), as well as being the sustainability data coordinator for Gonzaga’s Office of Sustainability, she still makes time to serve as a parliamentarian for Gonzaga’s Model United Nations. On campus, Kern’s devotion is integral to Gonzaga’s pursuit of equity, inclusion, sustainability and diplomacy.

Off campus, Kern exemplifies an engagement with the environment. Last summer, after receiving a grant from the National Science Foundation, Kern caught a flight to Maryland, designating her bearings at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Working inside a marine conservation lab, her research geared towards science and policy intersection, Kern began illustrating the ways data and science inform management strategies and environmental policies. It is young ambitions like Kern’s that strengthen the core of science by exercising its philanthropy, enact the environment as our home.

Kern is on an incline forging new paths for others. At the YWCA, she is known to be a citadel of empathy, alliance and virtue. She helped build Spokane’s first Citizens Climate chapter lobby, a national volunteer league and advocacy organization group molding federal climate solutions. Kern also served as an international humanitarian law instructor with the American Red Cross.

To anyone passionate about making a change, but unsure where to begin, Kern says, “I think starting in your local community is a really good step, taking some time to discern what your passions are and where you like to get involved, and also being okay with being uncomfortable is important. I think that's where we grow the most.”

As a Gonzaga student, in class, Kern considers herself a sponge absorbing the Jesuit education which reasons for values of social justice and sustainability. “I think we have some classes here you maybe can't get elsewhere, that are pretty unique. So, I explore those avenues,” Kern explains, referring to Gonzaga’s core curriculum.

Her goal is simple, yet her pursuit is grand; Kern wants to help others, everywhere.

With no fixed career path yet, Kern only dreams of taking her passion for societal and environmental justice internationally. Until then, she is savoring her time at GU and working like a heartbeat for Spokane’s community.