This is not a normal election year. Climate change, affordable health care, higher education, student debt reform, housing justice, and electing representatives who reflect our values are at stake. We continue to see the impact young people are making throughout the country when we dismantle oppressive systems and build one that is just, inclusive, and equitable for all people.
At the University of San Francisco (USF), we use this framework to guide our civic engagement activities through a campus-wide initiative called USFVotes, housed in the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good. From the moment students and their families step foot on our Jesuit, Catholic campus for New Student Orientation, we make sure that our values are front and center–that our community is a civically-engaged campus, one whose north star is to create a more just and humane world. Our efforts to institutionalize voter engagement include working alongside living-learning communities, Cabinet leadership, faculty and staff champions, student groups, offices/departments, local organizations, and external partners to make sure that we meaningfully reduce structural barriers to voting that tend to suppress and impact students on campus and in our communities.
In the 2020 general election, 75.1 percent of eligible USF students showed up and voted. Through generous funding and resources from the Andrew Goodman Foundation and Ask Every Student, our USFVotes team is part of a broad coalition to support voter engagement efforts to register and turnout members of the community through a one-on-one approach to reinforce a sustained civic culture and active participation in our democracy.
We incorporate academic integration and civic engagement into classrooms; institutionalize voter registration into orientation week and partnerships with student programming; compensate and provide training for student leaders who lead our efforts; and continue to cultivate institutional partnerships to embed voter registration, education, and turnout into existing processes. Our comprehensive approach for USFVotes set the stage for our 2024 election efforts at various touchpoints for students and the community, whether in-person or digitally. In this way, we have the opportunity to build a pipeline and pathway for students who are civically engaged and see themselves in leadership roles that directly contribute to the 2024 election and beyond.
Young people have always been and will always be the changemakers who push us toward a just and inclusive democracy. As one piece of a much broader national coalition of people who are called to this unique moment, we remember those who have gone before us in history and who have fought for a representative democracy. In particular, we are inspired by the spirit of 1964 Freedom Summer (noting its 60th anniversary this year): a movement of young people who went to Mississippi to register thousands of Black Americans to vote. This movement continues on today and will do so tomorrow through the spirit of young people who persistently fight for equitable voting rights. This is not merely an exercise in nostalgia, but a call to action. It reminds us of the enduring importance of advocating for equality, justice, and human dignity.
As our Jesuit, Catholic universities are called to educate and actively prepare our students for democratic citizenship, how might we more intentionally embed justice-oriented frameworks in this pivotal election year? What is our responsibility as educators in our students’ political, civic journeys? How does this relate to our central tenet of Ignatian spirituality, of cura personalis?
Civic engagement is a core aspect of Jesuit education and should be embedded into the mission and at all levels of the university infrastructure. It requires sustainable, year-round, cross-collaborative efforts and clear pathways for faculty, staff, and students to engage in the conversation: an ecosystem of social change. It demands fostering opportunities, providing guidance, and offering encouragement for all productive engagement, whether through voting, difficult conversations, activism, protest, and discernment.
Black feminist writer, poet and activist Audre Lorde said “There is no single thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” There is no time like the present, especially in this crucial election year, to demonstrate the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression, the intersectionality of identities and issues, and how solidarity begins when we speak truth to power.
By Angeline Vuong, Associate Director of Community Engagement and Public Service Programs, University of San Francisco