BodyText5
In its September/October 2018 issue, Washington Monthly named the University of Delaware one of only 58 colleges to meet all four criteria for commitment to encouraging
voting by its students.
In 2016, the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge awarded the University of Delaware a bronze seal for having a student voting rate between 50% and
59%. The ALL IN Challenge is a national competition for universities to increase voter engagement on college campuses. With guidance from CPC Associate Director Lindsay Hoffman, the University of Delaware has continued its commitment to increasing voter engagement in 2018. Read more about UD's 2018 ALL IN Action Plan and other reports via the ALL IN Participating Campuses page.
Student participation in elections has increased in the past few years. A recent report, "Democracy Counts: A Report on U.S. College and University Student Voting" from the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, an initiative of Tufts University's Institute for Democracy in Higher Education, shows that between the 2012 presidential election, and the 2016 presidential election, student voting went from 45.1% of eligible voters in 2012 to 48.3% in 2016―a 7% improvement.
"I am proud to honor the University of Delaware with an ALL IN Challenge bronze seal in recognition of their dedication, hard work, and achievement," said Zaneeta E. Daver, director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. "The University of Delaware is not only ensuring that a more representative population participates in our nation's democracy, but is educating students to be civic-minded. They are an example to be emulated."
The All IN 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. By joining the Challenge, campuses commit to:
- Convening a campus-wide committee that includes members from academic affairs, student affairs, and the student body, as well as any other relevant stakeholders;
- Developing and implementing an action plan to improve democratic engagement;
- Participating in the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) in order to measure student voting rates; and
- Sharing their campus' action plan and NSLVE results in order to be eligible for a recognition seal and/or awards.
More than 300 campuses, enrolling more than 4 million students, have joined the Challenge since its launch in summer 2016.