Getting Students to the Polls Is Not Enough

Tomorrow, the morning after the midterm elections, students will share their dorm rooms and classrooms with fellow students who voted for the candidates they opposed. Some students will celebrate the returns. Others will be angry—even fearful. In these common spaces, they will encounter competing claims about what happened at the polls and what comes next. Have their colleges prepared them?

As the midterms approached, campus leaders faced understandable pressure to tread carefully. Even a statement intended to be neutral can become ammunition in a partisan publication or for a conflict-driven content creator. Encouraging students to vote is essential—but getting students to the polls alone does not fulfill a college’s responsibility to prepare them for civic life.

This election is a teaching moment—before and after the vote. Students are learning to handle disagreement, discerning whose claims to trust and deciding whether civic participation makes a difference. Colleges must be deliberate about helping them learn those lessons.

At C&S, I convene College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, a coalition of 140-plus presidents committed to making civic preparation part of every student’s education. Together, we are committed to shaping all students across these institutions through three core civic commitments: educating for democracy, preparing students for a diverse world and protecting free inquiry.

Young people have given us reason to act. Our own research shows that nearly three out of every four young people see voting as a primary way to get involved in their community—but they also want to get involved beyond Election Day. Most young Americans today want to make a difference, but they need guidance, tools and opportunities to practice three essential civic skills: using credible information, having productive conversations and collaborating to create solutions. These aren’t “nice to have” skills; they are the basis of a functioning democracy. When we help young people practice these skills, we don’t just prepare better voters—we prepare stronger citizens.

This is precisely where college leaders can play a pivotal and distinctly nonpartisan role. Election season makes the entire campus a civic classroom. In residence halls, student organizations and conversations during class, students are learning how to engage in a society marked by pluralism. College campuses, each in their own context, convene students from across the country—across the world—who hold a wide range of experiences, beliefs and values. That makes every campus a place where students can practice civic skills in environments designed for learning.

One such skill is learning to discern and use credible information. Questions concerning election integrity are unavoidable in our current landscape. Therefore, it is as important as ever to teach students to separate fact from fiction and test claims against trustworthy sources, whichever side the claims come from.

Oakland University offers one example. Its Center for Civic Engagement is partnering with three local communities—Pontiac, Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, Mich.—on a student poll worker program. All Michigan municipalities are now required to have nine days of early voting when there is a statewide election on the ballot, so local clerks are stretched for resources. OU students help fill this need. By talking with officials and seeing all that happens before and after a vote is cast, this experience gives students firsthand knowledge of how elections actually work and grows their trust in these systems.

Another civic skill campus leaders can offer young people is having productive conversations. Across college campuses, students sit across from one another to discuss what they believe and why it matters. This real-time conversation draws students out of the algorithmic echo chamber where people are reduced to avatars and hashtags.

The Reduce the Rancor program, a collaboration between Macalester College and the University of Northwestern–St. Paul, demonstrates this. Students, staff and the presidents of both institutions—one a liberal arts college, the other an evangelical Christian university—meet monthly over dinner to move past political labels, talk honestly about their values, fears and hopes, and find common ground. As one student put it, the program “has allowed me to tear down these ideological walls and zoom in on the similarities I share with different people. In doing so, I have forged real connections with individuals I would have never spoken with.”

I also think of the University of Dayton’s Dialogue Zone, which equips students with communication skills to help navigate high-stakes topics in their community, ranging from conspiracy theories to the very meaning of America today.

Last and perhaps most importantly, campus leaders are uniquely positioned to help young people learn to collaborate and create solutions to local, regional and national challenges—the core work of self-governance. A mix of backgrounds and experiences in any given college classroom means that young people are often asked to work toward solutions with people who believe, and even voted, differently from them.

​​The University of Pittsburgh’s long-term partnership with the Fayette County Cultural Trust is a great example of this. Students and faculty work alongside local residents and community leaders in rural Fayette County—an economically distressed area located about an hour’s drive from Pittsburgh—to better understand and address the factors driving talented young people to leave. Working across differences, they conduct research, support community initiatives and help identify strategies that strengthen economic opportunity and quality of life. The partnership brings people with mixed perspectives together to solve problems and reflects a shared commitment to helping Fayette County build a stronger future from within.

When campus leaders like those at Oakland, Macalester, Northwestern–St. Paul, Dayton and Pittsburgh develop these civic skills with students on campus, the efforts pay off in abundance. Across 20,280 students surveyed at 23 campuses C&S has worked closely with, we found that 71 percent are confident making evidence-based arguments, compared with 59 percent of college students nationally and 58 percent of U.S. adults asked the same question. Additionally, 64 percent of students on campuses where we’ve worked listen at least monthly to people with different beliefs, compared with 49 percent of college students nationally and 43 percent of U.S. adults.

We know every college campus is unique. Educators know best what skills and practices are most needed in their classrooms and communities. Still, whatever the outcome of the midterm elections, what remains clear is the need for people to come together to improve their communities and their country. Whether we’ve knowingly enrolled or not, we are all in the “civic classroom” together. Campuses that practice these skills will be ready to bring students together instead of letting partisan politics tear them apart.