Get the Vote Out on Your Campus

This article originally ran in Women in Higher Education’s September 2018 issue.

In 2018, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker described the upcoming midterm elections as “the most important midterm election in our lifetime.” Encouraging voter rates among college students remains an important democratic concern. With voting rates among college students typically falling below the national average, what can you do to encourage students on your campus to become more engaged and involved in the democratic process? I spoke to an expert on the topic, Fagan Forhan, assistant dean of K–12 partnerships and civic engagement at Mount Wachusett Community College MA, for insights on strategies WIHE readers can apply on their campuses this fall to not only get students registered to vote, but also to encourage more long-term and sustainable civic engagement.

Forhan points to the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) as a great starting point for campuses aiming to increase student voting rates. Based out of Tufts University MA, the NSLVE can provide data to campuses on their current rates of student voting. Getting this baseline is critical, Forhan says, because it allows campuses to track the impact of their civic engagement initiatives. Interested parties can find more information at https://idhe.tufts.edu/nslve.

At MWCC, civic engagement is a campuswide initiative. While Forhan heads the Brewer Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement, she and her team work closely with various departments to support voter registration events. In particular, the Student Life office and faculty are critical partners in this work. Forhan notes that the responsibility for voter registration varies by campus, with many campuses tying voter registration efforts to their federally mandated Constitution Day (campuses that receive federal financial aid funds are required to provide education on the history of the Constitution to students).

Successful campus initiatives are almost never a solo effort. Take stock of your campus's approach to voter registration and civic engagement. Who is at the table for this conversation and how can you capitalize on your team's strengths to increase student voting rates?

Forhan notes that there is a growing awareness about the importance of proactively engaging students from diverse backgrounds in the civic engagement conversation. “Listening to the students' voices becomes particularly important here,” she says. “Students won't engage in a process that they don't understand or that they don't feel comfortable with. Many students have been blocked from decision-making in the past.” What’s on Forhan’s wish list for the future of civic engagement? Having all populations of students represented at the decision-making table. “It is possible to create safe and welcoming environments for students to take risks and engage in difficult dialogues,” she says. “We need to hear their voices.”

Does your campus include the student voice in voter registration initiatives? Do you intentionally reach out to students from diverse backgrounds to make sure they are welcomed and heard?

Faculty are an imperative piece of the civic engagement puzzle. One of the ways Forhan's team helps to support faculty is by creating an online civic engagement course through their campus learning management system in which all MWCC faculty are enrolled. Ideas and resources are provided within the course and grouped by subject matter. Articles and examples that faculty can integrate into their courses are easily accessed online.

How does your campus support faculty with incorporating civic engagement into their courses? Is that support user-friendly and easily accessible to all faculty, including adjuncts?

One of the reasons civic engagement at MWCC has been so successful, Forhan believes, is because the MWCC team has found a way to make politics and democracy relevant to students. While national politics can often be frustrating and overwhelming, Forhan believes local politics can truly empower and excite college students. “Our mission is for every single student at MWCC to have the opportunity to gain an education in democracy and public policy,” she says. “We want to make sure that they know the touchpoints in their own communities, the places where they can move the wheels of change.”

One of the ways the college leverages this local focus is in the classroom. Faculty are encouraged to help students to investigate the impact of politics on their field of study. “How does new legislation around cybersecurity impact computer science majors, for example?” Forhan asks. “How will health care laws impact our health science students? Those are the kinds of questions our faculty and students are asking.”

To help students see the importance of voting, make sure the focus is not only on national issues and elections. Help students to see that their votes are relevant on a local level too. Provide learning opportunities, both inside and outside of the classroom, to help students understand how politics impacts them and their community. Service learning opportunities (where students volunteer with local organizations) are one way to encourage this local focus.

For campuses looking for additional resources on encouraging voter registration, Forhan recommends the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge (https://www.allinchallenge.org/), a nonpartisan group that aims to increase voter participation among college students.

Whatever your approach, please remember that many states have voter registration deadlines that are well in advance of the November election. Now is the time to get started. As they say, every vote counts.