College of DuPage wins national award for student voting engagement efforts

The ALL IN-Campus Democracy Challenge by Civic Nation recently awarded College of DuPage with the Most Engaged Student Voting 2024 award.

The national, nonpartisan initiative encourages higher education institutions to achieve standards of excellence in student civic learning, political engagement and participation.

This is the fourth award that COD has earned from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.

The college previously earned the Most Engaged Student Voting 2022 award, a silver seal for voter engagement during the 2022 midterm election and a bronze seal for voter engagement during the 2020 presidential election.

In anticipation of the 2024 election, the COD Votes team integrated strategies for voter registration and engagement into student life, academics and marketing materials.

Their goal was to make direct contact with 1,000 students to engage them in educational material and inform them about voter registration.

After hosting 20 voter engagement events and 26 classroom visits, they exceeded their goal, reaching 2,270 students (over 10% of fall enrollment) from Aug. 1 to Nov. 4.

COD Votes also drafted a student engagement-centered action plan to increase voting rates to 73% and to achieve voting parity between white student populations and historically marginalized student populations by 2027.