The University of Tampa has been recognized by the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge for being one of the most engaged campuses for student voting.
UTampa is one of 471 colleges and universities recognized by ALL IN.
To be recognized as one of the most engaged campuses, the institution had to meet the following criteria:
- Participate in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge
- Share 2022 National Study of Learning– Voting and engagement reports with campus voting data with ALL IN
- Develop and submit a 2024 nonpartisan democratic engagement action plan with ALL IN
- Have a current signatory to ALL IN’s Higher Education Presidents’ Commitment to Full Student Voter Participation
In a press release, the executive director of the ALL IN Democracy Challenge Jennifer Domagal-Goldman said this year they saw more colleges step up their efforts with student voting.
“These most engaged campuses are setting the standard for nonpartisan civic engagement work for colleges and universities across the country,” Domagal-Goldman said.
Ian McGinnity co-leads the UTampa Democracy Coalition. He said the school was recognized because it participated in the All IN challenge and shared the resolve reports for 2022.
“We developed our 2024 plan and then we had the previous president, Dr. Vaughn, sign off his commitment. Since we had done those four things, we were recognized,” he said.
The 2024 statistics have not been conducted yet but McGinnity said he hopes to hear in 2025.
The National Study of Learning Voting and Engagement is the one that completes the data. They can access all the student data and pull the voting information together.
“You kind of (want to) compare like the presidential to a presidential because the midterms are always down,” said McGinnity.
He said it would be interesting to compare the two elections because the last one was during the pandemic, and this year there were more early voting options.
The university does not know if there has been an overall increase in student voting until the results are in, but McGinnity said they are hopeful.
“We had three opportunities before the Florida deadline to do voter registration with our friends at the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections office,” he said.
In one day, 48 students wanted to register to vote through the university and McGinnity said that was a big positive for him.
Since UTampa has a lot of out-of-state students, he had more concentration on educating students about mail-in ballots.
He said this election was unique for the university because it occurred when students were returning from the hurricane.
Once the election was over he hosted a post-election celebratory night that honored both sides of the political party and focused on destressing students.
UTampa plans to continue student engagement and wants to turn UTampa Votes! into a registered student organization and have the supervisor of elections in Hillsborough come to campus more frequently to help with local election awareness.
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