The Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement is proud to announce that St. Petersburg College has earned the Voter-Friendly Campus Designation for 2023-2024.
The Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators program “NASPA LEAD” Initiative partnered to establish the Voter-Friendly Campus program.
The Voter Friendly Campus program’s goal is to help institutions develop democratic engagement action plans that coordinate administrators, faculty, and student organizations in civic and electoral engagement.
This designation is awarded to institutions that continued their efforts, even during a non-national election year, to break down barriers and empower students with the information and tools they need to participate in the political process.
This work undoubtedly played a part in the tremendous youth voter turnout in the 2022 elections and opened the door to lifelong civic engagement for their students.
Campuses were evaluated on their ability to complete a multi-step process, which included engaging a coalition of campus members from staff, faculty, students, community organizations, and local election officials to develop a written plan for how the institution would engage student voters in 2022, facilitating voter education and engagement efforts on campus, and writing a final analysis of their efforts reflecting on what worked and what to change going forward.
The institutions designated 2023 Voter-Friendly Campuses include a wide range of two-year, four-year, public, private, rural, and urban campuses that collectively serve over 3.5 million students.
Notable statistics of this cohort include:
- 71 institutions joining the program for the first time
- 49 Minority Serving Institutions
- 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities
- 41 Community Colleges
To learn more about how you can get involved in non-partisan voter engagement, please contact the Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement by emailing Tara Newsom at newsom.tara@spcollege.edu.