Wake Forest University 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, Wake Forest University received a silver seal for achieving a student rate between 30% and 39%. A full list of seal awardees can be viewed here. 

“Wake Forest is thrilled to receive this recognition, and our students get the credit for taking the actions that spurred these increases,” said Penny Rue, Vice President for Campus Life. “ A Wake Forest education in the spirit of Pro Humanitate is designed to foster civic engagement, and our students are better prepared to be active citizens through the engaged liberal arts.” 

Student participation in elections has increased 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%. 

At Wake Forest, the student voter turnout increased 18.2 points from 19.7% in 2014 to 32.5% in 2018. The number of students who registered to vote also increased from 67.9% to 73.4%. 

“We are excited to honor Wake Forest 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 Wake Forest 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.”

ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge is a nonpartisan, national initiative recognizing and supporting campuses as they work to increase nonpartisan demcoratic 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.