Academic Integration
What is academic integration?
There are many ways to integrate civic engagement into the academic life of students! These “integration opportunities” include partnering with faculty to integrate civic engagement into their courses, organizing students to visit classes to register students to vote, adding voter registration to the course registration process, or creating a learning management system that meets students where they are. In this section, you can learn strategies and find resources from campuses across the country who are asking every student through the classroom.
This section is broken into three parts:
Faculty engagement: Partnering with and supporting faculty members in engaging their students in the democratic process.
Classroom engagement: Directly engaging students in the classroom context via class visits/presentations and learning management systems.
Course registration integration: Integrating voter registration into the course registration process.
Faculty Engagement
Partner with and support faculty members in engaging their students in the democratic process.
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Faculty Focus Groups and Surveys
Work with faculty to integrate civic engagement into their classroom and prepare students to participate in the democratic process.
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Ask Every Student Faculty Champions Guide
A toolkit for faculty to integrate nonpartisan democratic engagement activities into the classroom - both virtually and in person.
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Professional Development Workshop
A resource from Miami Dade College for using professional development workshops to prepare faculty to help students be election ready.
Classroom Engagement
Directly engage students in the classroom context virtually and in-person.
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Learning Management Systems (LMS)
Integrate nonpartisan democratic engagement into your LMS (i.e. Canvas, Blackboard, etc.) with a one-stop-shop for students to access information and receive support for participating in the voting and democratic engagement processes.
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Class Visits
Learn how to effectively utilize the classroom visit strategy to educate students on civic engagement and register them to vote if eligible.
Course Registration Integration at the Maryland Institute College of Art
Learn from 2022 Codesigner Cohort participant Hannah Shaw about their process for integrating voter registration into course registration and other touch-points at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). This process includes leveraging supportive state legislation, cross-campus collaboration, and working with students to identify the best opportunities for integrating into course registration.
Use the Jamboard Template (linked below) with a group of students to identify the best touch-points for integrating voter registration into course registration (or other processes).
Presentation about Course Registration Integration by 2022 Codesigner Hannah Shaw from MICA.
Partner Resources from Project Pericles
Project Pericles is a non-profit organization that promotes civic engagement within higher education. Working with our consortium of Periclean colleges and universities, we support innovative curricula and faculty leadership, which empowers students with the skills to address society’s grand challenges: Climate Change, Economic Justice, Education Access, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Race and Inequality, Public Health, and Voter Engagement. Building on the innovative vision of Eugene M. Lang, Project Pericles works in the classroom, on the campus, and in the community.
Resource Spotlight: Periclean Voting Modules
The Periclean Voting Modules are a set of curricular resources for faculty across all disciplines interested in incorporating civic and voter education into their courses. Project Pericles, in collaboration with college faculty from across the U.S., created the Periclean Voting Modules in 2018 with support from The Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition and The Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
The Voting Modules are designed to offer a suite of materials that faculty can adapt to fit the needs of their course and cover three main areas:
Deliberative Dialogue Discussions: Offers a framework for bridging academic content to real-world policy concerns, and facilitating discussions about critical civic issues that affect students. The sections on deliberative dialogue can be customized for courses across the humanities, STEM, and social sciences. To support faculty facilitation of a deliberative dialogue discussion, we provide topics and a framework, as well as prompts, ground rules, issue stances, a sample PowerPoint, and other supplemental resources including articles, guides, and other materials.
Why Voting Matters: Contains activities that demonstrate the power of voting and encourages students to articulate their personal connection to voting. Suggested activities can be used independently or in conjunction with each other and existing lesson plans.
How to Vote (An Overview of the Registration and Voting Process): Includes tools explaining how to register, how to vote (mail vs. in person), and what a ballot looks like.
There is a searchable database showcasing examples of how faculty across disciplines have used the modules.
Flexibility and Scalability
The modules are designed to include customization options across a range of disciplines, time constraints, class sizes, and pedagogies. They were created for both faculty who want a “ready-to-go” presentation and lesson, and for faculty members who would want to be co-creators of their curriculum.
Project Pericles also offers mini-grant and fellowship programs to support faculty using the voting modules. Check out their website for current opportunities.
