“We are proud to be among the colleges and universities recognized nationwide for nonpartisan student engagement and participation in the electoral process,” Elliott Strickland, vice president for student affairs, said in a press release. “Student Affairs and the Office of Student Engagement at Penn College have committed to developing our students’ sense of civic engagement, and participating in this challenge provides resources and other educational pieces to support that effort.”

The colleges join a group of 394 colleges and universities recognized by ALL IN for completing these four actions:

• Participate in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge

• Shared 2020 NSLVE Reports with campus voting data with ALL IN

• Developed and submitted a 2022 democratic engagement action plan with ALL IN

• Have a current signatory to ALL IN’s Higher Education Presidents’ Commitment to Full Student Voter Participation.

“A multi-pronged approach to ALL IN helped Lycoming College achieve success in the challenge, which was spearheaded by students enrolled in Dr. Angela Kurtz’s Civic Engagement course, with additional work completed by students in Dr. Ben Kantack’s Campaigns and Elections class. By integrating in-class learning with after-class service, students were able to more easily connect with their peers and effectively communicate the importance of voting,” Caroline Payne, director of community-based learning at Lycoming College, said in a press release. “Students engaged directly with local and state elected officials, created campaigns to educate the campus on registration and in-person and absentee voting, and executed a series of successful voter registration drives. We’re absolutely honored to receive this recognition from ALL IN!”

“College student voter turnout has increased since 2016, and this increase has been driven by students. The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge is excited to expand our ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll to recognize these student voting champions across the country,” said Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, Executive Director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.

“We are excited to launch our next set of goals for Penn College’s Democratic Engagement Action Plan,” shared Allison Bressler Grove, director of student engagement. “We are going to be focusing on providing students context for the impact of current events in real-time and promoting the engagement of students in civic life and citizenship by emphasizing opportunities to support change through partnership and being an informed citizen. We look forward to partnering with the campus community to accomplish these goals.”

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge empowers colleges and universities to achieve excellence in nonpartisan student democratic engagement. Campuses that join the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge complete a set of action items, with the support of ALL IN Challenge staff, to institutionalize nonpartisan civic learning, political engagement, and voter participation on their campus. The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge currently engages over 9 million students from more than 950 institutions in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.