Most students use Facebook to keep in touch with their friends, but Penn graduate student Josh Maxwell uses it to keep in touch with his constituents.

Maxwell — who is in his first year of the Masters in Public Administration program at Penn’s Fels Institute of Government — is also the mayor of Downingtown, Pa., a 9,000-person borough in Chester County located 33 miles from Philadelphia.

Maxwell got his start in politics when he was appointed to the Planning Commission of Downingtown as an undergraduate at West Chester University.