Bianca Rosales
So you know, whether we’re working with students, faculty staff, or even someone in student affairs, student voter engagement is likely just one of many responsibilities for them. You know, students have to worry about their classes. So do faculty, staff members are almost always handling other primary responsibilities. I know I’m preaching to the choir here. You all know that. So these are busy people who are going above and beyond to ensure that communities can make their voices heard in our democracy. And so for us, that means doing everything we can to ensure that we’re adding capacity at every turn, whether it’s with resources or guidance or just listening and being helpful. We want to give our partners every tool that will help them perform effective, nonpartisan student voter engagement using the capacity that they do have, which looks different on every campus

Heather Shea
Welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs educators, I am your host, Heather Shea today on the podcast, we’ll be diving into the crucial work of grassroots voting initiatives on college and university campuses as we approach the upcoming national election in the US, the importance of engaging students in the political processes cannot be overstated. College students represent a powerful demographic with the potential to shape the future of our country, and yet many might feel disconnected from the process or unsure of how to get involved. I am so thrilled to be joined by representatives of several organizations today to talk about this topic. Student Affairs now is the premier podcast and learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you find these conversations make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays, and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com on YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcasts. This episode is sponsored by Routledge Taylor Francis. Routledge Taylor Francis, view our complete catalog of authoritative education titles at rutledge.com/education and this episode is also sponsored by Huron, a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice. As I mentioned, I am the host for today’s episode Heather Shea. My pronouns are she her, and I am broadcasting from the ancestral, traditional and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabe, three fires confederacy of Ojibwe Odawa and Potawatomi peoples, otherwise known as East Lansing, Michigan, home of Michigan State University where I work. So let’s get into today’s conversation. I want to welcome my three panelists to the podcast.

Heather Shea
So, so first, welcome Bianca Rosales from students, learn students vote coalition. Welcome Bianca.

Bianca Rosales
Hi everyone. I’m so excited to be here.

Heather Shea
Next we have Ryan Drysdale from all in campus democracy challenge. Welcome Ryan.

Ryan Drysdale
Well, thank you, Heather, and happy to be here and with these esteemed panelists as well.

Heather Shea
Great and Chuck Black from fair election Center, where you direct the voter friend friendly campus initiative with NASPA, welcome Chuck.

Chuck Black
It’s so exciting to be a part of this, this great panel. Thank you.

Heather Shea
Yeah, so I’d love each of you to share a little bit about your organization and and actually give us a little bit of an insight into who you are. So introduce yourselves, tell a little bit about your backstory and what you drew, what drew you to this important work of grassroots voting initiatives. So Bianca, I’m going to have you start

Bianca Rosales
Absolutely and first of all, thank you, Heather for having us on this podcast. Really excited to be able to share more about our work. But yeah, I’ll go ahead and introduce myself. My name is Bianca Rosales. I use sheher pronouns, and I’m the director. Partnerships for the students, learn, students, vote coalition. I’m excited to talk more about that, but to answer your question, a little bit about me. I’m originally from the south side of born and raised from the south side of San Antonio, Texas, really proud of the community that I come from. I went to the University of Texas at Austin, so if you’re from UT Austin, go Longhorns. And I’m actually a grad student right now at NYU, where I’m getting my master’s degree in public administration. And so, you know, I think when I think about why I’m in this work honestly, and this is probably true for a lot of people. For me, it’s my upbringing, the community that I grew up in See, I grew up in a community that lacked a lot of resources in a lot of different ways, when it comes to, like, lack of access to health care, education and access to be able to engage in our democracy. I saw that, and I think there was a part of me that always like, knew there was something wrong with that. But in addition to that, I also came from a come from a family that is like very civic and engaged, a family of activists that have dedicated their lives to giving a voice to the voiceless, that have seriously shown what it means to to fight for our rights, to to make sure that every voice is heard and that no one gets left behind. And so kind of growing up in in a family like that, coupled with the community that I grew up in, it’s just something that was instilled in me at a very young age. It’s why I went into education. I was a teacher for a few years. I actually did a mock election with my students, and it was so exciting to see their their I taught elementary, and so to see my students ask questions about democracy, what it means to to to vote, and what that looks like for them. And it was like so inspiring for me, and I know how important it is that we do that and so that. And then I worked for local government, where my job and primary role was connecting with our community, getting them resources. And so that kind of showed me how important it is that like we that this work that we’re doing happens at a grassroots at a local level, and it’s why I’m so proud of the work that we do at the sosb coalition, because that is what we center. And all of the resources that we create and all of the work that we do is like making sure that we are centering our local leaders, that we are giving them the resources that they need to be able to do their work. Because you all the ones that are listening right now you are on the ground. You know your communities best, and so excited to play a small part in being able to help you do your work on college campuses all across the country.

Heather Shea
I love it. I love hearing about people’s backgrounds and and what informed their engagement in these different topics, right? So thanks so much, Bianca, and congrats on grad school. I can’t wait to see what happens after you finish um, finish that degree. Uh, Ryan, tell us a little bit about you. Well,

Ryan Drysdale
I’m Ryan Drysdale. I use he him pronouns, and I’m the director of impact and state networks at the all in campus democracy challenge, currently based in Washington, DC, and having the benefit of being able to look back in life now, I see three big points that led me to where I am now, versus growing up in Iowa, a small town in Iowa, and having a front row seat at the political process through the Iowa caucuses, I just assumed everyone experienced that, and only as I’ve gotten older seeing how much of a privilege we had of being in a room of 50 people with someone who would later become President of the United States and a number of other candidates. So that really fed an interest that I had in politics, civic engagement, but I also had this deep desire to follow my parents’ footsteps, who met in the Peace Corps to work on the international level. And upon graduating from college, I was working for a nonprofit in Thailand, and they had a major election coming up, a chance to restore democracy after a military coup, and I rode on the back of a dirt bike for seven hours, one way with a fellow teacher so he could cast his vote. And it was just thinking the length that that person went to And mind you, of the seven hours. I think it rained for six and a half hours that one way. So it was not a pleasant ride to get to the voting booth, but I saw how important it was for him. And being abroad, realizing, as a westerner who had minimal language skills there, I didn’t have a seat at the table for community problems, for national problems, and nor did I maybe deserve one, and it was an important realization, as I cared deeply about international work and was having these conversations with some of my peers in grad school for international relations, one of them quipped, well, why don’t you just work? Work on US politics. And I brushed that aside. I didn’t think, you know, well, no, that’s not what I want to do. Well, I just coincidentally got a job in 2016 with an organization that did High School voter registration in Colorado. And I thought it would just be a short term gig, and then I would get back to Southeast Asia and doing that work and seeing young people access their political power and learn about the systems and demand what they wanted to see for the future was some of the most fulfilling work I’d ever done at that point, and I realized this is this is where I need to be in the work I’m doing. And I like to say that I graduated from high school to college and now working in higher ed, nonpartisan democratic engagement. For the last eight years I’ve been doing this work.

Heather Shea
Awesome. Ryan, thank you so much. Also, super interesting. I love it when people have international, you know, kind of component to this, because, you know, we know that democracy looks different all over the world, right? And, in some cases, it’s it’s not present, and that reminds me, at least how important it is that we do utilize our our vote. All right. Now, last but not least, Chuck, tell us a little bit about you. Welcome.

Chuck Black
So I’m Chuck Black. I am with the Fair, fair, fair elections center. I come from a family. My grandfather was on our on our local town board. So, you know, I was involved in in campaigns since, since a very small age, and I always thought I would do campaigns for a very long time. So in 2018 I came to the Fair Elections center. It was a short term contract. I thought I’d be there through 20 for, you know, a six month contract. Now it’s 2024 and we are just growing. So I I’m based in Philly, I will say I think Philly is really such a representative city. And I think I coming from a small town to a bigger city. I have seen my own views change. I have seen, really the need for more representative, Paula repper, good repper representative. So I really enjoy this, this, this work. I also, I think it is really special that while the three of us come from different orgs, I can hire us all. I think three of the best. So it is just really special when you when this is not just a job, and this is, this is some something that you get to do with friends across the country.

Ryan Drysdale
Chuck you say that the you’re, I think the first person I met in the umbrella of the students and students vote coalition in 2018 after the election at the SLS V coalition Summit. And I got introduced to you. And then, yeah, here we are, six years later, still doing this.

Heather Shea
I love it well. And this is, this is the interesting thing about how podcasts guests kind of come together, right? Sometimes, you know, I put out like a ask, and then it’s just, you know, whoever can kind of come to the day. So I’m really grateful. But it was fun when we all got on the call, and Ryan and Chuck were like, Oh, we know each other. Like, this must be just a really small world. So welcome, welcome. So talk about stay with you for a moment, because I’d love to hear a little bit of an overview of the work that you do at the fair election center, and specifically the work that you’re engaged with with NASPA. And if you could talk a bit about how, if you know the origin story of the organizations and the ways in which they have partnered with college and university campuses.

Chuck Black
Awesome. So the fair, the fair election center, was founded about 2006 and it was essentially a group of election law attorneys who were involved, who were involved in different cases around the country, from fighting voter purges, fighting for people who have a have a felony conviction, to to help them get their rights back once they’ve served, um, to just really challenging some of the anti voting laws across the country. So in 2012 the fair the fair election center, saw that a lot of these anti voting lawsuits were really harming. Young people the worst. So they started the campus vote vote project, which is where I’m based in and it just started, just trying to work with some campuses. We were only in the verge in one state at that point. There was one, one staff person. So think about that. From 2012 to fast forward in 2024 we have staff on the ground in 10 different states. We run a HBCU program in three and we’re working with nearly 300 colleges across the country. So when I first started in 2018 you could fit us all in a small conference room. I think there was maybe eight of us. And now with we’re at about 40, so it’s just a huge growth across the fair election center. So what I do is I run this national designation program with NASPA. Many of your viewers are probably part of NASPA, and I hope to meet all of you at one of the many NASPA conferences. So NASPA is a National Association of Student Personnel, admin, and in 2017 campus vote project approach NASA, because we were doing the voting thing. They were doing this, the Student Affairs thing. And we’re like, we we’re all doing this great work on campuses. What if we came together formed a program where we could provide trainings, resources, guidance, but also provide a recognition for campuses who are doing the work so in 20 so I’m not going to get into all the different steps to become a voter friendly campus for at this point, but it’s a five step program, and then this campuses get it for a two year cycle. The first cycle, we had roughly 83 campuses from around 23 states be named voter friendly. For this most recent cycle, we have 262 campuses and about 40 some dates in these are campuses who are public, private, HBCUs, small, campuses, large. So we, we provide, you know that support and training, but also having that designation as a voter from friendly campus is something that we we now know, student affairs, vice presidents, chancellors, presidents, they want that recognition, and especially, hey, our peers have it. So should we? So I work very closely with the team at NASPA, and I think they have really helped us grow. We attend several of the big NASPA conferences. We do joint webinars, and they’re just an incredible partner.

Heather Shea
That is awesome. I am really familiar with NASPA and all of the work that they do. So it’s really cool to see partnerships that emerge through a need, right? And for sure, our audience will recognize that, and we’ll look for you. At the end, we’re going to give some information about how folks can get connected, and particularly if you’re interested in becoming a voter friendly campus. My guess is that Chuck is going to share with us kind of that process, or at least the website where you can learn more. So Ryan, tell us a little bit about your organization and the origin story.

Ryan Drysdale
Well, the all in campus democracy challenge we go by all in for short, was launched in 2016 and really the genesis of that, as many things in our space connect back to the national study of learning, voting and engagement at Tufts, university, often referred to as insolve, which is a fantastic study that provides campuses participating in the study with campus voting data. And when those first reports were released in 2014 I think there was a shockwave that went through parts of higher education realizing, wow, college students are voting at a much lower rate than we assumed. We have a lot of data that show folks who have a college degree vote at higher rates. So there was an assumption that college students voted at higher rates and the voting rates in the 2014, midterm election, where I believe is about 9% of students voted. So very shocking for a lot of people. Then there became a lot of interest of we need to change this. It takes a lot of action. So we all and camps. Democracy challenge was launched with a theory of change, of providing support structure. And recognition for campuses to increase nonpartisan democratic engagement, which we define as civic learning, political engagement and student voter participation. And we have a number of steps, some of them similar as Chuck outlines, but you know, creating a coalition across campus that develops an action plan, your strategic plan, of what you are doing with, what resources, who’s involved to ensure you have a plan, I think is often said is, if you don’t have a plan, you’re planning to fail. And I think that has been true around college student voter engagement for a really long time, until a lot of our organizations started a campus vote project came along before all in but as we get further away, we really all started to pop up around the same time, and today, we’ve grown to support more than 1000 colleges and universities. We have partnerships with 12 Secretaries of State, 15 athletic conferences. More than 700 presidents and chancellors have signed a commitment to supporting full student voter participation. So really have grown into this national network. And I think as Chuck talked about the origin of NASA and campus vote project coming together, we see that happening a lot in our space, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about it, but there’s a number of avenues that with Bianca at SLS V and Chuck at Campus vote project that our groups are very directly and intentionally collaborating so we can support campuses to have a more complimentary set of resources and tools to do this work, knowing each of our organizations brings a little bit of a unique flair to what can support a campus.

Heather Shea
Awesome. Thanks so much. Ryan, super interesting. Bianca, tell us a little bit more about students learn students vote. I’m

Bianca Rosales
happy to so students learn students vote. Coalition, or slsb for short, we are a national hub and the largest nonpartisan network in the country dedicated to increasing college student voter participation together, we are hundreds of campuses, local community group, national nonprofits, like the ones on this call, election officials and philanthropic partners that work collectively to ensure that every college student has the access knowledge and confidence to vote in every election, every single year, right? So this year is really important, but so is 2025 so is 2026 and beyond. And so as a coalition, we were founded on the belief that colleges and universities have a responsibility, right to foster the next generation of informed, lifelong, engaged voters. In fact, and not everyone knows this, but the Higher Education Act even requires colleges to make a good faith effort, right? I quote, make a good faith effort to distribute voter registration information to all of their students that are enrolled on that campus. And so we were founded in 2016 in large part because we saw that many institutions weren’t living up to this obligation for numerous reasons, lack of capacity, unaware that this is an obligation that they have of themselves, that is made of them. And so they were missing this like opportunity to engage their students in this unique way and to strengthen our democracy by helping students become engaged in our democracy, and we know that the best place to change that is at the grassroots, local campus level. And so we were founded with key groups like I said, including our partners on this podcast, all in campus democracy challenge the fair election Center’s campus vote project, as well as many other groups, and now we are over 300 partners with the presence on over 800 800 college campuses throughout the country. So we have seen a lot of growth since we were founded in 2016 and it’s been really exciting to be a part of that. And and so, yeah, that’s a little bit about sosb,

Heather Shea
awesome. So I think when I was thinking about this episode, I was really thinking about engaging students who might feel either disconnected from the process, disconnected from their home communities where they are traditionally and historically engaged, or just don’t know how to get either registered or engaged in some way. Ryan, can you talk a little bit about how your organization works to engage students, and maybe any additional information you want to share about that feeling of disconnection?

Ryan Drysdale
Yeah, I think it’s a really important framing of a question around disconnection, and why do we see that youth voting rates have been historically lower than the general population over time? In the 2020 election, we saw college students voting at the same rate as the general public for the first time since we’ve had and saw data available. But that wasn’t the case in the 2022 data, and I feel like a big issue is access. Access to information. This information, the lack of information on how to register to vote and cast your ballot, the lack of information to overcome barriers like voter ID or where your polling location is, as well as lack of information about why elections and democracy matter and how governance works and circle also at Tufts University for the 2022 election, surveyed 18 to 29 year olds, and found that 50% of those youth were not contacted by a campaign at all leading up to the election. So how are these young most often first time voters, lower propensity voters getting the information they need. Bianca mentioned the Higher Education Act good faith effort, which, when written, have a stack of paper voter registration forms in the library. You know, that’s not enough. Getting an email from a campus president saying it’s national voter registration day and register to vote, that is not enough. There needs to be more concerted efforts to connect people to the information they need, and that’s for those who are already eager and engaged and already know they want to participate. Of the back to that circle studied, only 76% of students were registered to vote in 2022 of those, 76% only 31% of them voted. So there’s a big disconnect that some people are getting registered and they’re not voting, and some people are choosing not to register at all. And some of the barriers they cite are it wasn’t important to them, or they didn’t have time. They were busy. And so there are actual barriers around voter registration, voter registration, or voter registration deadlines, voter ID. But I think a lot of those barriers come to making people feel connected to why this matters. And I think some of the ways to do that is connecting their area of study, their interests, to the ballot. And there are a number of resources that now exist to do that, increasing awareness around local elections. You know, if there’s not a great bus line from your housing to your campus, you know, the president the United States isn’t going to solve that, most likely, it’s going to be at a more local level, and then really just increasing that information to students. And one of the ways, the many ways that all in does that is through our all into vote.org. One Stop Shop for voter engagement, where anyone one can go on and get registered to vote, request a ballot, find their polling location, learn about election laws in their state. Some of those election law resources will take you to campus. Vote projects, fantastic state resources and which Voter IDs you need, as well as being able to sign up for election reminders. And then you can receive text and email reminders, not just for the November 5 election that’s coming up, but those who had already engaged in that system were getting reminders leading up to primary elections, which was a first for us in the 2022 cycle, and this is a great step in our development that also is not enough. We need to have the importance of participating in democracy coming from all stakeholders and engagement on campus, and that there’s a culture of democratic engagement from the Office of the President to orientation to athletic events, you name it. It’s not just one email, one poster, one tabling week on campus. It needs to be pervasive throughout the semester every year, whether an election is weeks away or months away.

Heather Shea
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more, and I think that that’s one of the things that I’m excited about this episode kind of having perpetuity, right? It’s not just a one time, a one moment kind of initiative. It really does need to kind of take, take that further Bianca, other, other thoughts, or ways that you would also engage in this conversation about disconnection. Yeah, I, first of

Bianca Rosales
all, I just want to, like, emphasize everything that Ryan just shared and and one point in particular that I want to focus on is the local action piece, focusing on that when you’re talking with young people who may feel disillusioned or disconnected from the political process, Um, but to get to talking about local elections, you kind of have to take a step back. And Ryan alluded to this a bit like identifying what it is that young people care about, right? And so part of that means that we, we as a coalition, we recommend, like a two prong approach, first starting with deep listening strategies, and then then focusing on what local action can take place based on what concerns young people are sharing. Right? A lot of our partners have dealt with issues that have found that the best way to approach a student who feels disengaged from the. Local process is to simply ask them what they care about. That sounds so basic, I know, but it’s so important. We know that students are so passionate about the issues, even those who have grown disillusion they care. That’s a fact. So by starting from a place of curiosity and empathy, we incentivize them to stay in the conversation, but by holding it on their terms. And so when we ask them how they can make a positive change, that’s when we get to this next step is and especially if they’re skeptical about voting, then we that’s where the local focus comes into play. See, like a lack of engagement often stems from not seeing change happen at the federal level, which Ryan just shared and and the you know, oftentimes the most visible level of government is the federal level, but it’s also where one vote has the least power to create change. And so we recommend helping them connect the issues that they care about to local offices that impact those issues, right? So if you’re talking to a student and they’re talking about how passionate they are about reforming the criminal justice system, then you know we can point them toward local sheriff or district attorneys on the ballot, right? How those elected officials, or potential elected officials, can impact the issues they care about. They mo the most if they care about education, then we’re pointing them to Board of Education elections. And so really, just, I think, at the end of it all, is emphasizing the fact that, like, one vote truly can make the difference at the local level, and in a handful and a handful of votes often does make the difference. So that’s where change can happen quickly, visibly and tangibly for their lives, which is something that we try to make the connection toward, especially when they’re feeling disillusioned about what’s happening on a national level.

Heather Shea
That’s great. Chuck, tell us a little bit about some strategies that you’ve seen have been most effective right in increasing voter registration and turnout among college students. And I should also disclose, I am the parent of a sophomore in college who is registered to vote, but I, you know, I think that that was not necessarily something that they had had like at the top of their list. So how do we make sure that students know that there are resources and what strategies do you think are most effective? Yeah,

Chuck Black
so I think while it’s great and helpful for when older voters, such as us, you know, have those table events or show up. It’s not as powerful if it’s for as us, if it’s let me start over, it is way more powerful to have young people meet other young people. We need to empower our students. We need to trust our students, and above all that we also need to pay students. I I come from a you know, I graduated in 2012 and like, internships weren’t paid, but I’m hoping we’re moving past that. So I think any amount goes a long way, and we know it’s actually in a lot of campuses, there is no budget for civic engagement or student voting. So if campus vote project can pay to students to be fellows on their campus, even that small stipend helps make sure that we have quality and trained students doing the work, but also shows the campus we’re investing in your program, let those students be a part. So we at Campus vote project. We run a national fellow the fellowship. We do have Michigan State students, by the way, but we have fellows across the country right now, we have roughly 300 or so, and while we do training, professional development, check ins with with them, they’re essentially the ambassadors on their campus to do tabling, to show up to classes and give those short present present presentations. They run events because a peer talking to another peer is going to be way more powerful. Yes, I will come to any campus, and I love showing up at a, you know, random event, but that that one on one coming from from a peer, just goes such a long way. And I think one of the things with our fellowship, which is so exciting, while saying 2024 we might have a student who just comes on for one or two semesters, we have multiple students. I mean, hundreds. Who will start, say, their second semester and will be fellows, onto the on onto the gradual, gradual way. I you know, just as my peers on this panel, we did this work for free back in college, and yes, it was great and is meaningful, but even just being able to pay, but also then hold those students accountable. Of you know you have to do this many hours, do this many events, is what’s really making a difference across our campuses. And Ryan talked about writing a program, and we’re writing those actions, steps, this fellows can be a part of writing all that provide that support, and then they take that action plan, and then they run with it. So we, I, I’m a big, add a big personnel. We have to empower students. We need to train them and provide that support, but we also need to pay them.

Heather Shea
Yeah, yeah. I could not agree more. I think that labor has got to be compensated. What Ryan Bianca, what else would you add to this idea about increasing voter registration?

Bianca Rosales
Yeah, I can take go next. So one of the strategies that at the sosb coalition, we’re particularly proud of is our ask every student initiative. So ask every student, as the name suggests, helps campuses, ask every student to participate in the democratic process and achieve full student voter registration. AES, which is short for ask every student, uses a framework that’s based on research driven insights that full student voter participation comes from integrating voter registration into existing processes, right such as student orientation or like classroom visits. Like Chuck mentioned executing inclusive one on one voter registration and non partisan democratic engagement tactics and institutionalizing these tactics to be a sustainable, sustainable part of campus culture. And so one, I’d like to share an example of a campus that has used our ask every student tactics in a really phenomenal way, and that’s our partners at Clark Atlanta University. So in 2022 Dr Terry Platt and Dr Sabrina riles from Clark Atlanta, which is an HBCU by by the way, that serves over 4000 students, they developed a timeline to align course registration with voter registration, they identified, they then identified strategies for student outreach and data tracking, and they collaborated with their university, including the registrar’s office, to secure permissions for contacting those students. And so with the support of $6,500 AES grant that they received, as well as the institutional partnerships that they have with the registrar’s office, Clark Atlanta was able to register over 1200 students to vote in the fall of 2022 and they collected pledge to vote cards from over 1500 students. And so that’s just like a specific example of like, what college campuses can do when they implement these high level strategies that we offer through our ask every student program, which we have a full toolkit that you all can explore, and it’s like a wealth of resources, and we have a lot of support to help campuses execute those resources. And so campuses that are in our network through our ask every student program like we’ve grown tremendously since it started today. We have more than 335 campuses participate in ask every student, and we’re only growing and looking to continue to grow that more because we know that these strategies work. So that’s definitely one that I would like to highlight.

Heather Shea
That’s awesome, Ryan, what else would you say?

Ryan Drysdale
I think what? Becca. Becca, excuse me, Pianka worked with you too long to tell you the wrong name and Chuck have highlighted is the access to resources is so important. There’s a lot that can be done without additional line items on the budget, but you’re going to have a more profound and sustained impact when you do prioritize this work and allocate staff and financial resources to it, and there’s an abundance of strategies out there, and you know your campus community, what’s going to work best? You have a lot of residential or commuter students in state or out of state, all of that will impact what types of strategies you use. And I think it really comes foundationally to having a robust campus voting coalition that has access to these resources, the capacity not only to develop an action plan, but implement it. And we see the student vote Research Network has been tasked and created to research some of the. Strategies to find out which ones have the greatest impact, so then we can share that knowledge so folks can dedicate finite resources most efficiently. And there was just within the past couple of weeks, a publication from the student vote Research Network of a project they funded at George Mason University that tested a few different in person and and digital based engagement strategies for voter registration and turnout, and they found, with a statistical significance, that when you go into a classroom and present this information in person and give the information about registering and voting, those students in that group were 11 percentage points or 11% more likely to vote. And so we have online tools that we should use, but we cannot forget about the power of in person engagement and doing it in campus. Systems that already exist, like orientation and move in days are really great ways to have those multiple conversations that need to happen more than just once, as well as creative solutions to barriers. And Wisconsin has pretty strict voter ID laws, and there’s a network of campuses and nonprofit organizations that work to ensure that campuses can take the steps to make sure their student IDs are compliant with Voter IDs in the 2023 election for the Supreme Court in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin, Madison printed 1000s of documents that were necessary for students to have the identification proof they needed to vote. And so having those creative solutions there, and there’s there’s more, we could spend the rest of the time talking about all of these. There’s so many great examples, but I want to come back to one Chuck mentioned a faculty member talk about the importance of this. Is necessary, having students also engaging. It is vital. There is just that connection of meeting people, where they are, with people who are, you know, familiar with them. And one other thing I’ll add is related to those campus systems is those online systems. Bianca was talking about that class registration. You can embed voter registration prompts into your learning management system, working with your IT department, getting that students are getting those prompts just another way to have those multiple nudges that are needed and overall as all in looks at our program evaluation over the years, we’re seeing a correlation that campuses that are engaged with more aspects of our programming, of developing action plans, engaging their presidents and athletic coaches, and many more, they have higher voter registration and higher turnout rates. That shouldn’t shock us. If you’re doing the work, you’re going to see rates increase over time, and it’s that commitment to taking multiple actions and not just checking that box of compliance with the Higher Education Act of having that stack of voter registration forms in the library.

Heather Shea
I have this visual now of this, of this, like stack of forms, and that’s it, right? It sounds like all of this work is really possible through collaboration, right? So Ryan, I’m going to stay with you for a moment. Can you talk a bit about the importance of that collaborative relationship with administrators, with with student groups and with other organizations to help kind of broaden this message. And it sounds like, based on you all knowing each other, you’re also collaborating with one another too.

Ryan Drysdale
Yeah, there is such a spirit of collaboration that the, you know, the SLC coalition helps lead, you know, if they didn’t exist, you know, with the campus vote projects and all ins and other groups, be collaborating in the ways we are, you, I think, probably not as likely. And you know, so that needs to happen on campus too. You need to have a coalition. You need representation of all key stakeholders, from the top administrators to faculty, student affairs, Academic Affairs, obviously, students and student groups, and not just tokenizing students having a diverse representation of the lived experience of students across the campus community as well as community partners and local election officials play such an important role and can provide resources and assets around getting polling locations on campus or creating solutions to challenges around registering to vote, which can happen on some campuses where you have an institute, the mailing address versus the voter registration address is different, and then students don’t know that, and then they think they’re registered to vote, and they go and they vote and they’re not registered to vote. So there’s a lot of solutions that having a coalition can really bring about, and we see that within campuses and even between campuses, all in has over 20 communities of practice by institution type, like Hispanic serving institutions, community colleges and HBCUs, as well as athletic conferences where folks come together monthly and share and learn ideas amongst each other. And I think that’s one of the beautiful things about this coalition, is if someone comes up with a new, innovative, great idea or tweaks a long standing one, we want to all. Raise it up so everyone is around that and that type of collaboration needs to exist on a campus community to make sure this work isn’t episodic and happening just in the weeks before the election, but it’s something that’s being built on year after year after year.

Heather Shea
Yeah, that’s great. Chuck Bianca, what would you add? So

Chuck Black
I kind of want to share example and then talk further. So Ryan made a point about partnering with local, local officials, the voter friendly campus, and not to keep highlighting Michigan, because I know this podcast is national and we’re national, but we just hosted the Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, on one of our webinars from the Michigan state perspective your county, your county clerk, Barbara Byram, also spoke. So again, I’m very affectionate towards Michigan, but of course, I work with campuses across the country, but I have been so impressed that there are elected officials, there are who really want to show up, and they know we’re nonpartisan, and 99% of the time, they’re very good about keeping it nonpartisan, because they they they want to see young People engage. So I just wanted to highlight both of those because I think that collaboration with your local county clerk, this set the in all of your local officials, also shows that you care. They might not even know that there’s this voting work happening on campus. End of the day, they’re politicians, they’re they’re going to want to show up and engage with students for multiple different reasons that we don’t need to discuss. But it is still it is good to have that engagement. So with the fair, with campus vote, vote project, and all of our partners we host, and we’ve been doing this for years, the statewide student voting Summit. Typically, they’re in the fall, and it’s a day of trainings, networkings, speakers. And while they happen beyond campus vote, we in a course of three weeks in September where we are hosting 13 state summits, both of my colleagues, their their their groups are also a part of a part of these, but these are just a day, sometimes too where we’re going to bring people together, not just students, not just staff, provide those trainings, but also provide them with that space to get to know what their colleagues across the state and sometimes across the country, what their what challenges they have, what’s what’s going well. And I also think being in that space is also just good for everyone’s soul. So I’m really very excited about this. We also, because of the support of our our partners and many others we are we are able to host these conferences for free, to students, to staff in many, in many cases, example, Texas, where it Texas is not a small, small place. We can provide hotels. We’ll provide travel stipends, because we want to bring people together, because this work should not just happen on on your campus. We want you to work with and get to know and learn from people all across this space. Um, I also just really want to emphasize with with CO with our, you know, us, us three, and a lot of others in this student vote space, we believe in showing up every year while there are a lot of groups, and they don’t want to throw shade, because they do serve a purpose that they’re just going to show up to push students to vote for president or just show up to push us a US centuries. We are here year round. There are states that don’t even have elections sometimes, but you still need to be as Ryan said, Yes, we’re all focused on november 5 and november 5. Somehow we’ll be here soon. But then we have to start thinking about 2025 the state judge races, your county clerks, your mayors, and then start preparing for one each 26 so this work never ends. And I think to really build those campus voting coalitions that work should not end just because, you know, the president vote has gone. So we will certainly share how people can find out about the state’s Summit. But I think it’s a great way to come as a team in this. In this space.

Heather Shea
That’s great. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. No,

Bianca Rosales
I was just gonna say I want to emphasize those eight summits. Well, definitely slsv will be at, I think, every single summit that CBP is having this year. So we’re really excited to be connecting with students all across the country. We’re going to be doing some really amazing trainings. But, yeah, I think you know, to just continue and emphasize some of the points that were already made. You know, as a coalition, that’s our bread and butter, right? We know that collaboration is the like, truly, it’s the key to all of our successes. And so as a coalition, we I created different opportunities for our partners, whether you’re like our nonprofit partners, but for our campus partners as well, to engage with one another. Because, you know, Ryan talked about campus voting coalition’s work, which is extremely critical to the work that’s happening on their specific college campus. But in addition to that, it’s so important that college campuses have an opportunity to connect with other college campuses, which is why those state summits are so important to learn from one another. You know, we try to create those opportunities so that they can be like, Oh, okay, you know, we’re having this issue. You know, how have you all handled that? Like, if you’re if a college campus is navigating strict voting laws on you know, how are other campuses in their state handling? How are they navigating that? And so, one of the ways that the coalition does that provides an opportunity besides virtual because we have a lot of virtual opportunities, but one of our key ways is through our national student vote summit that we host every year. You know, when the pandemic happened, we had to go virtual, and that was kind of sad here, but we really excited, because last year was the first time that we were able to bring folks back together in person since 2019 and, I mean, the energy was incredible. We had over 100 students, and as well as tons of campus stakeholder representatives, campus admin and faculty nonprofit partners, where we brought everyone together in person at the University of Maryland and College Park. And it was an opportunity for like folks to like one reconnect after a very long time in person, but an opportunity for them to learn from one another, to get trained on different resources, to get trained on like strategies that we know are effective, right? And I want to give a shout out to both of our partners here on this call campus of a project and the all in campus democracy challenge, because I have been integral in making that a space that is truly helpful and for our campus partners and so. So, yeah, I just to end that. I just really want to emphasize that partnerships on campus and off campus are really important, and learning from one another is is key, because we can’t do this alone. I mean, it’s just not possible. So we’re really excited to help be able to provide spaces like that so campus with one another. Thanks.

Heather Shea
Bianca, so I I, before we get to kind of some practical steps for engagement, I do want to talk about some of the challenges that that you all have faced, or and how you overcome and sustain this growth within the work that you do. Bianca, do you want to speak to that? And then we’ll, we’ll get to practical steps?

Bianca Rosales
Yeah, definitely. So I gotta say, there are so many challenges, right? Too many to name them all. But one in particular is this, it’s very rare for student voter engagement to be any one person’s primary responsibility on a college campus. So you know, whether we’re working with students, faculty staff, or even someone in student affairs, student voter engagement is likely just one of many responsibilities for them. You know, students have to worry about their classes. So do faculty, staff members are almost always handling other primary responsibilities. I know I’m preaching to the choir here. You all know that. So these are busy people who are going above and beyond to ensure that communities can make their voices heard in our democracy. And so for us, that means doing everything we can to ensure that we’re adding capacity at every turn, whether it’s with resources or guidance or just listening and being helpful. We want to give our partners every tool that will help them perform effective, nonpartisan student voter engagement using the capacity that they do have, which looks different on every campus and so. So I would say, like, that’s one of the main challenges that we see and that we try to alleviate with the resources and tools that we create. But yeah, another challenge, I would say, is making sure that we’re able to support campuses and states and districts whose voter access laws differ a lot. We have to make sure our resources and guide. Are adaptable to someone in Michigan, you know, for example, where there’s automatic voter registration and same same day registration. But as well as someone in Alabama, where they have strict voter ID laws and there isn’t early voting so difficult challenges, ones that, as a coalition, all of our partners, we have been working like steadfastly to to address so that our campus partners are getting the support that they need.

Heather Shea
Yeah, so let’s talk a little bit about some practical steps, and as our audience is typically folks who work in Student Affairs or higher ed, maybe even frontline staff members, hall directors, et cetera. What are some practical steps that you might suggest as key takeaways for engaging students as we approach this upcoming election? Ryan, I’m going to start with you.

Ryan Drysdale
I think the big practical step to focus on right now is to meet this moment. There will not be more attention on your campus, within the campus community about civic and political engagement between you know, in the next year, this is the time, and so use that to build that foundation. And we talked about coalitions. And you might say, oh, there’s no Coalition on my campus. A lot of coalitions start as a coalition of one, be that one, bring in one or two other people, get that foundation in place to build and grow on. So that way, when we are in spring 2025, and you might have local elections, or you have a longer runway when you start thinking, Okay, we need to add voter engagement to orientation. The time has passed. You can’t do that for this semester. Most have already gone through orientation. And higher ed can be a slow moving ship at times, and you need that longer stretch of time to be able to implement those ideas. So seize this moment when people are interested. There are resources make your asks of the president or chancellor, go to your athletics department and get the coaches and student athletes involved. And there’s a whole litany of resources we have, the students learn, students vote. Coalition has a great resource library where you can go and search for what type of strategy you’re looking for. But this moment is the time to build the long term work. So it’s not just episodic. And what you will be doing in these next few weeks, not only can have an impact on november 5 selection, you’ll be paving the way to have an impact in November 2026 as well. So you know, if your campus is not participating in all in or a campus vote project, or the students learn, students vote coalition, join our organizations and work with all of us. I think there can be a thought of WoW three that can be really daunting, but there’s a lot of overlap, and there’s a lot of you create an action plan for one of us. It works for all of us, and we have complimentary sets of resources all in doesn’t do student fellows, because campus vote project does. So if you’re working with all in, there’s things you might be able to access that you can’t, that campus vote project doesn’t have, and vice versa. So build that coalition of nonprofits and others that you’re working with to support the coalition that’s working on campus.

Chuck Black
Um, I wanted a second what Ryan just said, we I definitely agree. And I hear like it can be over whelming, like there’s a lot of people in this space, but please know at least us three, but several others we are working very close. I joked during action land time I talked to Ryan more than I talked to half the campus votes people. So we are we are working very close behind the scenes because we don’t want it to be overwhelming. But there are different things that each of us can provide. So please feel free to contact all of us.

Bianca Rosales
Yeah, definitely, I did all everything that they said. One other, just like practical thing, I would add, is if you haven’t already sign up for campus takeover, so which is a great way to help your campus community mobilize for the elections through campus takeover. You get tool kits to celebrate the Civic holidays, including national voter registration day, which just passed, but National Voter Education Week, which is coming up, and vote early day. So that’s an easy entry point. If you’re like, Look, I’ve never done this work before. I I want to get involved, but, like, I not sure where to start. Sign up for campus takeover. That’s an entry point that I guarantee you will then open up so many doors for you and so many resources from there moving forward. And then the only other thing I would say is I just want to emphasize what Ryan and Chuck were sharing. Um, I, you know, if you’re on your campus and you’re like, Oh, I, I’m ready to take on this work, I recommend just kind of doing a little bit of research, asking questions, of like, who’s already doing this work on your campus or, or maybe not. Maybe there isn’t anyone, but figuring out who the leaders are on your campus that are engaging student voters and and joining in if there’s a campus voting coalition plugging into that work, or, you know, if there isn’t one, then, like Ryan said, be that, be that person of one that gets the work started and start little by little, getting folks in. This is a marathon, right? This isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight, but it’s really important and valuable for you all in any way, whether it’s starting a campus voting coalition, getting plugged in there or or signing up for campus takeover and hosting an event, everything is valuable, and you have to start somewhere. So that is one thing that I would say, I love it, and we’re here to help you do that. So I

Heather Shea
love it, and I think what I’m going to do is link in the show notes some additional resources from previous episodes, because we did feature some different campuses that are doing this well in some other some other resources, as well as the that national study that Ryan referred to earlier. So okay, so this is our final question we always ask. You know, this podcast is called Student Affairs NOW, can you talk a little bit about what you’re thinking troubling, engaging or considering now, and if you’d like to share with folks how they can connect with you, whether it’s LinkedIn or your or your organization’s website, that would be great. Bianca, we’re going to have you go first.

Bianca Rosales
Yeah, I think I’m just thinking how excited I am for Yes, November, but how excited I am to continue this work in the years to come, to prepare because, like many of us have already said, this isn’t, you know, just during presidential election years, this work important. This work matters every single year. And so just thinking about how we can continue that momentum beyond November. Um, but, yeah, if you want to engage in that conversation, joining join us at the National Student vote Summit, where we’re going to debrief the election and talk about how we continue this work moving forward and engage with us. You can join our coalition and learn more about our work by going to sosvcoalition.org lots of information on there, and if you want to sign up for an informational to learn more specifically about how we support college campuses and how we might be able to support your work. I recommend signing up for an informational that’s also on our webpage, where you just click on join the coalition. And if you want to follow me on LinkedIn and connect with me there, just please feel free to research my name, Bianca Rosales, and I’d be happy to connect with anyone who’s interested in engaging this work.

Heather Shea
Awesome. Thanks so much. Bianca, I appreciate your time. Ryan. Final thoughts and how to connect.

Ryan Drysdale
I’ve been thinking about how talking about this moment and the lead up to the election, but also this moment of what civic and political engagement is looking like on college campuses, particularly around the issue of what’s been happening in Gaza and Israel, and for institutions to see this as an opportunity and not just as a threat. And how can we support student engagement? This is an opportunity for them to take these moments further and deeper into their life. How do you respond to it as an institution and learn from it. Now, I don’t have any of those answers necessarily, and it’s very tricky positions to be in, but there is an opportunity here to use this and work with this to create even deeper civic and political engagement now and into the future. And I was talking to a board member at an institution that he was saying they felt like they navigated what’s been going on with Gaza and Israel fairly well for their institution, especially compared to many of similar institutions nationally. And I asked him why, and he said, for multiple years, they’ve implemented deliberative dialog programming into orientation and other aspects of the campus community, staff, faculty and students, and they feel like because they’ve done that for a number of years, they have the tools and resources to have these extremely difficult conversations in a way where people can feel hurt, it can be constructive and doesn’t become as destructive physically or just with the campus culture and fabric that we see so often. So it’s a challenging time, for sure, and there are opportunities abound to really grow and learn from what’s happening

Heather Shea
Great. And how can folks connect with you? Connect

Ryan Drysdale
with me, with all. All in. It’s, I think all of our handles are all in to vote on our different socials. We’re also on LinkedIn, so connect there as well.

Chuck Black
So I’ll, I will take a stab at it. I am, I’m. I’m also really thinking about the threat to democracy and also the threats to people who work elections. You know, we saw what happened, the threats against Jocelyn Benson. We have seen these threats all across the country, and I don’t know what the solution the solution is beyond the fact that we can’t give up on democracy. We can’t give up on fighting for free and fair elections, for defending the right to vote. I don’t care how some someone votes, I want them to vote, because that’s part of what makes this country what it is. Um, so I, I hold a lot of anxiety about November. But I think there are so many, so many groups out there, common cause, the League of Women Voters, who are just going to really and all of us who will protect the elections no matter what happens. Because this, you know, every single election matters, but we also have, we have to have trust and faith and support the people that run our, our, you know, our county boards, all the poll workers. I have never been a poll worker, but I think we have seen how important, especially in the past few years, those people are. So I just Bianca talked about this our civic days. One of my personal favorite is actually, it’s like election super hero today. I might have butchered that name, but we’re just going to call it that um, but we recognize the people who work our elections, because that’s, that’s what keeps voting moving. So I’m also very, very excited. I think we’re hopefully going to see a lot of students vote, a lot of students being engaged, and hopefully 20 to 24 will shatter student voter turnout in every state, no no matter what. So thank you for letting us be be a part of this fair election center.org which will then link to the voter friendly campus website. We just did this whole launch of a new logo, new website, all that. So check it out. And thank you for allowing us to be a part of this panel. Of course,

Heather Shea
oh my gosh. I I’m, you know, you got to use whatever voice, voice or vote you have. And today, I think this episode, hopefully is my country, one of my contributions to promoting that on our college and university campuses. So I am so grateful for all of you for your time and for the work that you’re doing through your organization. Super excited about getting this episode out into the world so that folks can contact and utilize the resources that you all have shared today. I also want to take a moment to express my gratitude to our producer, Natalie Ambrosey, she does all kinds of amazing work behind the scenes to make us look and sound great. We are so grateful, Nat for all that you do, and also thanks to today’s episode sponsors, Huron is the global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice by creating sound strategies, optimizing operations, accelerating digital transformation and empowering businesses and their people to own their future by embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo, Huron creates sustainable results for the organizations they serve, and our second sponsor Is Routledge Taylor and Francis, this is the world’s leading academic publisher in education, publishing a wide range of books, journals and other resources for practitioners, faculty, administrators and researchers. Routledge Taylor Francis recently welcomed stylist publishing to their publishing program, and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education and teaching, Student Affairs, professional development, assessment and more. We are so grateful for their sponsorship of our podcast, and you can view their complete catalog of education titles at routledge.com/education to all of our listeners, if you’re tuning in today and haven’t already subscribed to our weekly newsletter. Please take a moment to enter your email address on our website studentaffairsnow.com and you can stay in the loop with our latest episodes delivered to your inbox every week on Wednesdays. And while you’re there, please visit our growing archives. We’re over 220 episodes. And counting, and I am so grateful to the entire host team of the podcast for the continuous work that we are engaging in here. So thanks again. My name is Heather, Shea. Hope you all have a fabulous week.

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