College of DuPage earns 2022 ALL IN Most Engaged Student Voting Award

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge by Civic Nation recently awarded College of DuPage with the Most Engaged Student Voting 2022 award.

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

"The COD Votes team is thrilled to have earned this recognition for our work advancing civic learning and democratic engagement at College of DuPage," said Student Activities Coordinator Stephanie Quirk.

This is the second award that COD has earned from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. The college previously earned a bronze medal for voter engagement during the 2020 presidential election with a voting rate of 58.7 percent.

"Thanks to the Living Leadership program students, who formed the original team in the fall of 2019 and worked to gain the support of the administration in the first year," Quirk said. "Their leadership and ability to transition through the COVID-19 challenges in 2020 laid the foundation that we as students, faculty, staff. and wider community members continue to build on today as a cross-institutional and community-connected team."

From spring 2021 to fall 2022, the COD Votes team hosted 20 voter education and engagement events encouraging students to become registered voters, learn about their constitutional rights, meet state and local government leaders, exercise communication skills to create dialogue with individuals with different political values and connect with alumni who work in public service.

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