In an effort to encourage more postsecondary students to register and vote, Education for All (EFA), a group of over 250 college presidents, mostly from community colleges, has created the Student Voting Brief, a strategy guide for institutional leadership, CEOs, and partners to help instill civic participation and successful campus voting initiatives.
“We're trying to get students to be engaged in their communities, and voting is just part of that,” said Dr. George Boggs, president and CEO emeritus of the American Association of Community Colleges, and president emeritus of Palomar College in San Marcos, California. “It's not just the national election. It's elections, local, state, and national that are going to affect the lives of these students.”
Almost 50 higher education associations and state systems have signed on in support of the voting brief, including the American Council on Education, Achieving the Dream, Excelencia in Education, and Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.
“This is a nonpartisan effort. We want to get students registered and voting. Our concern is that students in higher ed traditionally have not voted at the same rate as the population in general,” said Boggs. “That changed in the last election, but it didn’t change for community college students who register and vote at about 10 percentage points less than four-year college students. And people of color in our country do not participate in voting as much as the white population.”
The voting brief offers a collection of resources, some from the federal government, some from postsecondary educational organizations, and others from independent collaborations of campuses. Each can provide useful and creative ways for students to become interested in voting, connecting the dots between their actions and results at the ballot box.
Dr. George Boggs, president and CEO emeritus of the American Association of Community Colleges, and president emeritus of Palomar College.
Dr. Michael H. Gavin, president of Delta College, a two-year institution in University City, Michigan, and chair of the EFA, agreed. The EFA was formed when he and other college presidents became concerned with the sheer number of legislative attacks on DEI seen around the country.
“I haven’t seen in my career a time [like this], when the intersection of politics and education is going to directly impact students,” said Gavin. “And so, the value of the student voting brief, from my perspective, as a president and cabinet member, there’s so much information flying at you, this reduces the how-to very easily in terms of getting students to vote.”
Dr. Lynn Tincher-Ladner, president and CEO of Phi Theta Kappa.
“You’ll see them out protesting—tons of students are involved in Black Lives Matter— but it matters what happens in that voting booth and they have to make that connection, the earlier the better,” said Tincher-Ladner. “That’s our involvement, to get them to utilize voting as a way to solve problems.”
Boggs said he would like to see community college leaders use this toolkit to help empower their students, who tend to be working and raising families.
“[Community colleges] need to expand our efforts. It needs to be more than just in the classroom. We need to be engaging students by bringing speakers on campus, having debates, just encouraging students to be aware of the issues that are affecting them,” said Boggs. “I can't think of another time in my career when we've had so many issues that are going to be decided, and our students need to be participating in those decisions.”
Liann Herder can be reached at [email protected].
