CONWAY, Ark. (May 21, 2018) – At the first-ever ALL IN
Challenge Awards Ceremony to recognize colleges and universities committed to
increasing college student voting rates, Hendrix College received a bronze seal
for achieving a student rate between 50 and 59 percent. A full list of seal
awardees can be viewed here.
“Hendrix is proud to receive
this national recognition for our efforts to engage Hendrix students,” said Dr.
Jay Barth, professor of politics and director of civic engagement projects for
the College. “From the moment students arrive on campus as freshers, our
faculty, staff, administrators, and students are committed to working together
to reduce apathy, increase engagement, and graduate civic-minded students
prepared to solve the country’s – and the world’s – most pressing challenges.”
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Student participation in elections has increased in the past few years.
A recent report, “Democracy Counts: A Report on U.S. College
and University Student Voting” from the National Study of Learning, Voting, and
Engagement (NSLVE), an initiative of Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy
in Higher Education, shows that between the
2012 and 2016 presidential elections, student voting went from 45.1 percent of
eligible voters to 48.3 percent – a 3 percent improvement. Hendrix College’s
data reveals a similar increase.
According to NSLVE, approximately 55.2 percent of Hendrix students
participated in the 2016 general election, a rate 7 percent higher than
students at other institutions, and marking a 3.7 percent increase since 2012
at Hendrix.
During that period, Hendrix students engaged to protect against efforts
to remove a voting site from the Hendrix campus. Their action resulted in a new
voting center being placed on campus, allowing Hendrix students, faculty, and
staff registered to vote in Faulkner County the ease of voting where they live
and work. Then-Student Senate President Peter Butler ’17 led the effort to
protect the voting site and worked with other students to produce a nearly 87
percent student voter registration rate among Hendrix students. Butler and
Barth spoke about the importance of on-campus voter sites in student engagement
at the University of Arkansas Clinton
School of Public Service in the fall of 2016.
“I am proud to honor Hendrix
College with an ALL IN Challenge bronze seal in recognition of their
dedication, hard work, and achievement,” said Zaneeta E. Daver, director of the
ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. “Hendrix is not only ensuring that a more
representative population participates in our nation’s democracy, but is educating students to be
civic-minded. They are an example to be emulated.”
The All IN
Campus Democracy Challenge is a national awards program
that 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. By joining the Challenge, campuses commit to:
-
Convening a campus-wide
committee that includes members from academic affairs, student affairs, and the
student body, as well as any other relevant stakeholders;
-
Developing and implementing an
action plan to improve democratic engagement;
-
Participating in NSLVE in order to
measure student voting rates; and
-
Sharing their campus’s action plan and NSLVE results in order to be eligible
for a recognition seal and/or awards.
More than 300 campuses,
enrolling more than 4 million students, have joined the Challenge since its
launch in the summer of 2016.
About Hendrix College
A
private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas, Hendrix College consistently
earns recognition as one of the country’s leading liberal arts institutions,
and is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will
Change the Way You Think About Colleges. Its academic quality and rigor,
innovation, and value have established Hendrix as a fixture in numerous college
guides, lists, and rankings. Founded in 1876, Hendrix has been affiliated with
the United Methodist Church since 1884. To learn more, visit www.hendrix.edu.