Trinity College Receives Silver Seal for Excellence in Student Voter Engagement
At the 2019 ALL IN Challenge Awards Ceremony held to recognize colleges and universities committed to increasing college student voting rates, Trinity College received a silver seal for achieving a student enrollment and voting rate between 30% and 39%. A full list of seal awardees can be viewed here.
“Trinity College is proud to receive this national recognition for our increased voter engagement by members of our college community,” said Jason Rojas, Trinity College associate VP for external affairs and the president’s chief of staff. “We remain committed to working across campus to graduate civic-minded students. While we believe our work is not yet complete, civic awareness is a part of the Trinity experience, whether in the classroom, in the cafeteria, in the bookstore, or in our neighborhoods. We all have a responsibility to ensure our students are educated about the voting process and the impact their votes have in each election.”
Student participation in elections has increased nationwide from the 2014 midterm election to the recent 2018 midterm election. According to the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, an initiative of Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, voter turnout at the more than 1,000 institutions participating in the study increased by 21 points, from 19% to 40%. Trinity College data reveals the school’s voting and registration rates are up more than 18 percent campuswide from 2014. Additionally, the number of 18- to 21-year-olds who enrolled and voted had increased from only 8 percent in 2014 to more than 26 percent in 2018.
This year, Trinity College joined with other NESCAC institutions in an effort to engage students in the voting process. The project NESCAC Votes provides colleges and universities an opportunity to collaborate in a friendly competition by helping to increase a democratic commitment among all students. ALL IN measures the data across campuses nationwide.
“We are excited to honor Trinity College with an ALL IN Challenge silver seal in recognition of their intentional efforts to increase democratic engagement and full voter participation,” said Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, executive director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. “More institutions like Trinity College are changing culture on campus by institutionalizing nonpartisan democratic engagement efforts that are resulting in the incredible student voter turnout rates that we’ve seen across the country.”
The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge is a nonpartisan, national initiative recognizing and supporting campuses as they work to increase nonpartisan democratic engagement and full student voter participation. The Challenge encourages higher education institutions to help students form the habits of active and informed citizenship, and make democratic participation a core value on their campus.
More than 560 campuses, enrolling more than 6.2 million students, have joined the Challenge since its launch in summer 2016.
