Iowa Alumna Has Spent Career Amplifying Citizens’Voices

PHOTO: JOSHUA LANGLAIS AmericaSpeaks founder Carolyn Lukensmeyer, who serves as executive producer for the new documentary, 9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero, is pictured at her home in Maine.

In the aftermath of 9/11, a grieving New York was faced with the problem of what to do at the site of the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history.

Some were adamant that the towers should be rebuilt—beam by beam—to the exact specifications of the originals. Others were convinced that to build on the site where nearly 3,000 victims died was morally wrong.

Bringing together the demands of so many people was a staggering task. The city was at an impasse—how do you find a consensus on something so polarizing?

It took University of Iowa alumna Carolyn Lukensmeyer (67BA), founder of AmericaSpeaks, to devise a plan to bridge the divide.

Lukensmeyer founded AmericaSpeaks in 1995. The nonpartisan nonprofit gave 5,000 New Yorkers a voice in rebuilding ground zero while revolutionizing town hall meetings by incorporating technology like computers and voting devices—a groundbreaking move at the time.

The nonprofit’s breakthrough success in New York is the subject of a new documentary, 9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero. The film’s world premiere is planned for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 this year.

“When I was approached to make this film, I understood how much work it would be for me, so I said I would do it under one condition: that the importance of democracy be a throughline in the documentary,” Lukensmeyer says.

A Lifetime of Public Service

Lukensmeyer says her upbringing in Iowa, followed by opportunities at the UI to lead student-faculty engagement, sparked her interest in nonpartisan discourse and deliberative democracy.

“I grew up in a large, multigenerational family, so I saw all kinds of differences at my own dinner table,” says Lukensmeyer, a native of Hampton, Iowa. “I grew up in a context where it doesn’t matter what party you are; it matters what your values are and what you do in the world as a reflection of those values.”

Growing up in Iowa taught her that every human life matters, she says, and her experiences studying English and political science at the UI helped her place those values into a larger context from which she launched her career.

“What I learned at the University of Iowa was how to think about the world,” she says. “Every person has a worldview that comes from their life experience and what they have been exposed to, so when you feel in conflict with another person’s worldview, what you need to be is curious.”

After 20 years spent engaging citizen voices with AmericaSpeaks, Lukensmeyer became the founding executive director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona. She stepped away in 2020 and has co-led the nonprofit National Civic League’s Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map as the next chapter of her public service.

In 2012, her book Bringing Citizen Voices to the Table: A Guide for Public Managers was published, and in 2019 she returned to her alma mater as a UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni Fellow.

For a career in service of citizen power, Lukensmeyer earned the UI Eight Over 80 Award earlier this spring. Just as she helped amplify the voices of New Yorkers after 9/11, she continues to inspire and implore Americans to be active, engaged citizens.

“Every single one of us needs to step up to our responsibility as citizens to ensure the next 250 years of our democracy,” she says.