KU Receives Gold Seal to Recognize Student Voter Engagement

Old Main in background with logo for All In Gold Campus. 70-79% Voting Rate. Excellence in Student Voter Engagement. Presidential 2020 Election.

KUTZTOWN, Pa. – Kutztown University has received a gold seal from the 2020 ALL IN Challenge Awards for student voting participation rates on campus. Gold seals are awarded to colleges and universities that produce a student voting rate between 70-79% in the presidential election.

During the 2016 presidential election, student voting on KU's campus was recorded at 48.3%, just missing qualification for the bronze seal. In the recent 2020 election, student voting increased by 21.9%, raising the voting rate to 70.2%. Total enrollment for KU in the 2020 fall semester was 7,892 students. With a voting rate of about 70%, this indicates that approximately 5,500 students casted their votes in the presidential campaign.

"The partnerships we have with All In, Campus Vote Project, Democracy Works and the Andrew Goodman Foundation have been instrumental in supporting the success of our voter engagement at KU," said Leah Cassellia, senior director of Student Involvement and Student Union Operations. "Our students are fortunate to have such informative and reliable non-partisan resources to support their voter education and engagement."

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.

This initiative works closely with the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE), the nation's largest program that studies college and university student voting. Institutions must opt-in to the study, and to date, more than 1,200 campuses are participating. Data utilized is de-identified to protect and ensure confidentiality of students.