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This year, AGF is celebrating ten years of impact with the Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere Program. As we reflect on how the program has grown, the Campus Team at Pace University reflected on the past nine years and their hopes for the future of civic engagement on the campus in New York, New York. 

Pace University has been an Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere campus since 2015! What barriers to voting existed on campus prior to 2015?

As we know, voter access is tied to what supports exist, or do not exist, at a university for student voters. Prior to 2015, no department in the the university had dedicated funding and training to regularly carry out voter education. While Pace’s Center for Community Action and Research was engaged in voter education every year, it was not until we became a Vote Everywhere campus that we were able to build momentum for sustained student leadership on voter education and offer substantial training to our staff overseeing these efforts. While only our NYC campus has AGF Ambassadors, both our undergraduate campuses have immensely benefited from AGF resources since 2015.

From what you know of how things were in 2015, when it comes to voting and civic engagement on campus, what are some of the most noticeable changes?

One of the most recent, and notable, changes from 2015 to now is that both undergraduate campuses at Pace now have on campus poll sites. Prior to the primary elections in Spring 2024, Pace students had to vote off campus. In NYC, our multiple residence halls were consistently split between two or three different poll sites which made outreach and our annual poll walks logistically quite challenging. Some poll sites were in buildings that students were not familiar with and often had trouble finding. At our Westchester campus, our office had to run an annual Voter Van where we would drive students to our local polling place that was otherwise inaccessible for student voters. After about two years of organizing, we are excited to host student and neighborhood voters on campus on Election Day!

More broadly we are currently experiencing a Presidential Election season that is very much the product of our nine years as a Vote Everywhere campus.  The 2016 Election was soon after we began to partner with AGF.  Now in 2024, we are known on campus as the voting resource for students, staff, and faculty.  Over the past four years, we have expanded and developed regular strategies including course presentations, publication of our My.VoteEverywhere Portal, and regular partnerships with on campus departments that students interact with on a daily basis. As a result, we are much closer to our ultimate goal of full-student voter participation.

How has the general campus’ perception of voting and civic engagement evolved since 2015?

Since 2015, Pace students have experienced Black Lives Matter protests, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, multiple highly contentious presidential elections, the worsening climate crisis, and other global and national issues directly tied to our political systems. Within this context, students demonstrate time and time again that they are highly aware of, and impacted by, what is going on around them and are looking for ways to make an impact. Pace has a strong history of student organizing in various communities, both on and off campus, and we strive to connect voting to other forms of change-making like advocacy and activism.

Over the years we have also witnessed a trend in student interest around voting specifically – a few years ago we used to spend a lot of our outreach time making the case for why voting was important and impactful. Now, a lot of students come to us already interested in voting. Rather they are just looking for logistical help with either registration or navigating their voting options and don’t need as much convincing about the importance of voting itself.

How has your Campus Team reflected on the legacy of Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Freedom Summer 1964 over these nine years?

We consistently integrate conversations about Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner into our work, for instance by introducing each student leader that we work with to their story. Over the years we have also hosted programs directly connected to their legacy. For instance, last year we hosted a screening and discussion of the film Rustin. After the event, AGF’s Executive Director Rashawn Davis and one of our AGF Ambassadors joined other community and campus leaders about the connections between Rustin, civil rights organizers like Goodman, and the work of our student organizers today.

What are some ways that the Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere program has supported your efforts on campus to increase voter and civic engagement?

AGF provides funding, mentorship, and training for our AGF Ambassadors and Campus Champion that we could truly not do our work without. In addition, AGF’s support of our strategic analysis and planning has been invaluable. They help us to analyze if our on campus organizing strategies are working and if they are aligned with best practices. When we have noticed gaps in our strategy, they have suggested ways to evolve. They provided training and resources when we experimented with asynchronous class days on Election Day. More recently, AGF was absolutely crucial for our ability to get an on-campus poll site. The work they had done to support the 2022 NYS law enabled us to then begin on campus organizing with their backing. Working with AGF on this initiative allowed us to successfully convince university administrators of the importance of on campus poll sites and to ensure that the NYC Board of Elections assigned all our residence halls to our chosen on campus poll site.

What are your hopes and dreams for what civic engagement will look like on campus four years from now?

Four years from now we hope we will host another on campus poll site for the Presidential Election and that it is being supported by a team of student leaders that remains robust and energetic. We would love this poll site to be the culmination of another four years of year-round voter education and that our department and our partners have ample resources and support to do this work. While our ultimately goal remains full-student voter participation, in four years we hope that the voter turnout of our students remains high and that in particular, STEM and Business students are voting at rates closer to the rest of the student body.

What are the team’s main goals to increase and support voter engagement and turnout in 2024?

Our main focus in 2024 is our first ever on campus poll site for a general election.  We have been centering this information in our outreach since the beginning of the semester. We can’t wait to see students registered to vote with their on campus address vote in the Student Center! More broadly, we are interacting with as many students as we can before November 5, through class presentations, tabling, social media, and programming.  We are working to remain equitable in our outreach to reach students who have historically voted at lower rates at Pace, or who are most likely to face voting barriers including students voting in states with restrictive voting laws and trans and non-binary students who have questions around voter ID and/or registering to vote with a legal or preferred/lived name.

Stay tuned as we continue our Campus Connections series, featuring each of our Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere Campus Teams, the impact made on campus, and how they are living the legacy during this pivotal point in our nation’s history.