New College is known for its high voter turnout, so much so that the campus has won numerous awards for civic engagement. And now the College can tack another accolade onto the list: an additional designation as a “Voter Friendly Campus.”This recognition is part of a dual initiative between the Fair Elections Center Campus Vote Project (CVP) and NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education to highlight more than 200 campuses in 37 states (and Washington, D.C.). It marks the second time New College has received this award (following the 2019-2020 honor), and the designation is valid through December 2022.
“It’s very rewarding to be designated as a voter-friendly campus again,” said Jada McNeill, the assistant director of New College’s Student Activities and Campus Engagement (SA[u]CE) office. “The 2020 election was a very critical election, and I wanted to ensure everyone in the New College community was informed about the voting process in the era of COVID-19.”
To this end, McNeill and her colleagues created New College’s Voting Information Center and partnered with TurboVote to make it easier than ever for students to register, gather absentee ballots and meet primary deadlines.
“I also created our voter engagement program initiative called NCF V.O.T.E (Voting, Outreach, Training and Education). Any voter engagement event created under SA[u]CE or the Campus Vote Project will fall under this initiative,” McNeill said. “I’m excited to continue our voting programs every semester, and my goal is to build a coalition to help extend our democratic efforts to the New College community.”
Efforts like McNeill’s were just what the Campus Vote Project and NASPA were looking for when making their “voter friendly campus” determinations. Institutions were noted for “planning and implementing practices that encourage their students to register and vote in 2020 elections and in the coming years,” the program leaders said.
In past years, New College students won multiple awards for their political initiative. The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge recognized New College for its high level of student voting during the 2018 election (nearly two-thirds of students voted). The College also earned a platinum seal from ALL IN for achieving a student voting rate above 50 percent, as well as three “Best in Class Awards” for the highest voting rate among all participating small, public, four-year institutions. Being recognized in 2020 and 2021, however, is especially meaningful.
“We are now, more than ever, bombarded with so much information that it’s almost impossible to keep up. Giving students accurate information in a world of so much misinformation was shown to be more crucial this year (and COVID brought that to light, especially when there are so many rules, regulations and policies that differ by state),” said Dani McCalla, the director of the SA[u]CE office. “Our only goal is to give the students access to reliable tools and information for them to make well-informed decisions for themselves. Being granted this honor allows us to continue doing the work with our students so that, when they graduate, they are not just academically smart but civically and democratically engaged.”
For more details on voting and other political information, visit New College’s Voting Information Center at ncf.edu/campus-life/voting-information-center. For questions about political activism on campus, contact the SA[u]CE office at 941-487-4501 or [email protected], and visit ncf.edu/campus-life/sauce-office.
Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.