Miami, March 14, 2022 – Miami Dade College (MDC) has joined the 2022 Codesigner Cohort for Ask Every Student, a national joint initiative that facilitates collaboration between campus leaders and nonprofit partners to help campuses ask every student to participate in the democratic process and achieve full student voter registration. MDC was part of this cohort for the first time in 2020.
Comprising 24 students, faculty members, and staff participants representing a diverse group of 20 higher education institutions across the country, the 2022 Codesigner Cohort will work to develop innovative strategies and resources to increase student democratic participation on college campuses using the Ask Every Student Framework. Together they will employ, and build upon, the processes that helped Ask Every Student produce significant gains in student involvement in participating schools during the 2020 election cycle, according to an extensive 2021 academic study of the initiative’s efficacy.
“We are proud to once again be a part of this prestigious Cohort that will allow MDC to continue to fulfill its mission to get students involved in the voting process,” said Joshua Young, college-wide Director of the Institute for Civic Engagement and Democracy (iCED) at MDC. “It is important that every voice be heard, that our students recognize their ability, and frankly, their responsibility, to participate thoughtfully in the democratic process, and that starts with registering to vote. Ask Every Student helps us facilitate this undertaking.”
The 2022 Codesigner Cohort includes local students, faculty, and campus staff leaders representing 20 campuses across the country, including five community colleges, and seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).
For years MDC has actively participated in initiatives to motivate and facilitate nonpartisan student and community engagement in the election process including hosting voter registration events on National Voter Registration Day (NVRD), which the College has been a part of since the program’s inception in 2012, as well as National Voter Education Week and Vote Early Day. The College also provides resources, such as the one-stop election ready website mdc.edu/vote, where students can register, check their status, update their address, and find details about upcoming elections and MDC-Motivote, a nonpartisan digital platform that helps students get ready to vote and build long-term civic habits. MDC also takes part in the Voter Friendly Campus program with Campus Vote Project . Since 2018, MDC Kendall and North Campuses have served as early voting sites for Miami-Dade County, making it easier for thousands of students and staff to cast their vote.
“We can’t wait to see how the 2022 Codesigner Cohort will build on the success of Ask Every Student’s unique, human-centered design approach towards creating resources that help us realize our vision of ensuring every individual student has easy and equal access to voter registration where they live,” said Clarissa Unger, Executive Director of the Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition, an Ask Every Student Steering Committee member and the national hub and largest nonpartisan network in the United States dedicated to increasing college student voter participation.
About Ask Every Student
Ask Every Student is a national joint initiative of the SLSV Coalition, the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, the Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project, and NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, that facilitates collaboration between campus leaders and nonprofit partners to help campuses ask every student to participate in the democratic process and achieve full student voter registration. For more information visit https://www.studentvoting.org/