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Posted: 11/13/19

TAMIU Receives Gold Seal for Excellence in Student Voter Engagement

 

Gold Campus Voting Designation Logo
 

At the 2019 ALL IN Challenge Awards Ceremony held this week in Washington, D. C. to recognize colleges and universities committed to increasing college student voting rates, Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) received a gold seal for achieving a student rate between 40% and 49%. A full list of seal awardees can be viewed here.

TAMIU president Dr. Pablo Arenaz applauded the Award recognizing student efforts. 

“Our institution is proud to receive this national recognition for our efforts. 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, and the world’s, most pressing challenges,” Dr. Arenaz said. 

Student participation in elections has increased from the 2014 midterm election to the recent 2018 midterm election. According to the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, an initiative of Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, voter turnout at the more than 1,000 institutions participating in the study increased by 21 points from 19% to 40%.  TAMIU’s data from the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement reveals that the 2018 Voting Rate grew to 42.1%, a whopping 26.6% improvement over 2014. The national 2018 Voting Rate was 39.1%. 

“We are excited to honor TAMIU with an ALL IN Challenge gold seal in recognition of their intentional efforts to increase democratic engagement and full voter participation,” said Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, executive director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. “More institutions like TAMIU are changing culture on campus by institutionalizing nonpartisan democratic engagement efforts that are resulting in the incredible student voter turnout rates that we’ve seen across the country.”

At TAMIU, the campus initiative was led by University College and former instructor Paty Cantú and Gina González, associate vice president for Student Success.  Both worked closely with the Student Government Association, MOVE Texas, and the Political Science Association.

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge is a nonpartisan, national initiative recognizing and supporting campuses as they work to increase nonpartisan democratic engagement and full student voter participation. The Challenge 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. 

More than 560 campuses, enrolling more than 6.2 million students, have joined the Challenge since its launch in summer 2016. 

For additional information on TAMIU’s ongoing efforts, please contact Dr. Daniel De la Miyar, University assistant professional at daniel.delamiyar@tamiu.edu.

TAMIU is celebrating its 50th Anniversary and its 25th Anniversary at its north Laredo campus throughout 2019-2020.  A dedicated website shares the University’s transformation from a hybrid upper-level university to a full doctoral degree-granting University. It includes a calendar of Anniversary events and more at tamiu.edu/50.

For more on the University’s story, contact the TAMIU Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at 956.326.2180, email prmis@tamiu.edu, click on tamiu.edu or visit offices in the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library, room 268.

Students involved in voting initiative.

In this 2018 photo, students, partners and TAMIU administrators who helped lead the 2018 effort to increase voter engagement included, from left, MOVE Texas community partner Jesús Ochoa, student Alejandro De León, ADP campus coordinator and instructor Lilia P. Cantú, University task force member and instructor Dr. Daniel De La Miyar, and students Pedro Rivera and Eduardo Guzmán.