Several minority serving institutions (MSIs) highlighted in a new report from the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) at the University of Pennsylvania are mobilizing their students to vote and become engaged around political issues, despite barriers that keep students away from the polls.
MSI students and leaders are encouraging student voting and civic engagement through student-led marches, voting coalitions and voter registration campaigns, opportunities to volunteer during elections and in the community, institutional designations as early-voting sites and emphasis on voter education, according to the report titled Spotlight on MSIs: Turning Student Activism into Votes.
“Over the past couple of years, there has been an emphasis on needing to engage young adults to register and vote. This population is among the largest of eligible voters, and research has shown that college-educated citizens are a lot more likely to vote,” said Andrew Martinez, one of the report’s lead authors and a research associate at CMSI. “We hope that this report inspires MSIs and other colleges and universities to minimize the challenges and barriers students often encounter when trying to register and vote.”
Report recommendations for higher education institutions to drive voter mobilization and civic engagement include:
-Reach out to MSIs already engaged in work pertaining to voting and ask for their expertise,
-Introduce voter registration and discuss voting with new students during orientation,
-Participate in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, which guides colleges and universities through the steps needed to be fully engaged,
