As the November election approaches, student organization Elon Votes and professors are leading seminars, organizing voter registration drives and other educational events.
Dillan Bono-Lunn, professor of political science and faculty fellow of civic engagement, said creating an environment of mutual trust and respect is vital for faculty when teaching during election season.
“It’s normal to have some concerns about talking about the election in class, and namely just around how you create an environment that has trust and mutual respect,” Bono-Lunn said.
Bono-Lunn also said she believes faculty including election content in class can be important for student success, and hosted an event Aug. 19 for faculty about how to include election content in upcoming classes properly.
“The first thing we talked a little bit about was well, ‘Why would faculty want to talk about the election, bring the election into their course content?’” Bono-Lunn said. “Namely, it would be around enhancing the civic engagement skills of students, which are important in terms of being a better, better citizen, and a better member of the community.”
Bono-Lunn said she also told faculty that teaching students to be more engaged citizens can help them in their future careers, whether they go into politics or not.
“These are skills that often employers want,” Bono-Lunn said. “There are so many different issues that these elections touch, so it can advance the learning outcomes of a class in and of itself, but also sort of underscore the relevance of what students are learning in class in the real world.”
Students are also given election resources outside of classroom conversations. Elon Votes is a nonpartisan organization designed to help students register and understand the process of voting.
Junior Lindsay Bialecki, co-coordinator for Elon Votes, is helping the organization get students prepared to vote, some for the first time, through registration drives, absentee ballot requests and information on where to vote.
“We are doing a lot around these initiatives, and we have a whole timeline around helping people and all that sort of stuff. So particularly, we're going to be doing a lot of voter registration drives up until Election Day,” Bialecki said. “We use a system called Turbovote, which is provided to us through the school, and helps students register on campus really easily.”
Elon Votes is also able to register students from any state and can help students request absentee ballots at any time.
“We can also help students who want to register in their home state. So if you're not from North Carolina, or you're not from Elon specifically, and you want to register from your hometown, we can help you do that as well,” Bialecki said. “Come around late September, starting early October-ish, we are going to add on an absentee ballot, so helping students request those absentee ballots, whether you live in the state of North Carolina or in a different state, and making sure we know the requirements for different absentee ballots.”
Elon Votes also has an open-door policy for students who can’t make it to any of their on-campus voter drives.
“We have an office in downstairs Moseley, and you can register to vote there at any time, so students are like, ‘Oh my gosh, every time they have a voting drive, I have class, or I have a club, or I just can't do that.’ You can always walk into the office and someone can help you,” Bialecki said.