Wake Forest Named Among America’s Best Colleges for Student Voting
Wake Forest University was recently recognized as one of “America’s Best Colleges for Student Voting in 2020” by Washington Monthly, a nonprofit magazine that covers government and political issues. Universities that demonstrated a high level of commitment in encouraging students to vote were selected for Washington Monthly’s annual honor roll list.
The recognition marks WFU’s first time being named to the list, now in its fifth year. Wake Forest joins five other schools from the state of North Carolina and was one of 157 schools that were selected from across the country.
The Monthly compiled its 2020 list with information from both the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge — which helps schools craft plans to bolster civic engagement — and The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) at Tufts University, which calculates registration numbers and turnout rates for participating campuses.
The listed schools met multiple criteria. They submitted an ALL IN action plan in 2018 and 2020 and signed up to receive NSLVE data about their own campus registration and turnout rates. In addition, each institution has made both its 2016 and 2018 NSLVE data available to the public. In short, selected schools have shown a repeated commitment to increasing student voting and have been transparent about the results.
Schools on the honor roll were listed by voter registration rate, with top-performing schools featured at the top of the list.
The Office of Civic & Community Engagement at Wake Forest is home to Deacs Decide, a highly collaborative campus-wide political engagement project. The program aims to raise awareness about issues at stake in the 2020 election; educate the campus and Winston-Salem community about candidates; and register students, faculty, and staff to vote. For more information about Wake Forest’s voter registration and education initiatives, visit Deacs Decide.