Inver Hills Community College has a blend of liberal arts transfer students and career programs, such as law enforcement and nursing. 25% of Inver Hills’ students are dual-enrollment high school students, and the college’s civic engagement team is comprised of administrators, faculty, staff, and students who work together to write an annual nonpartisan voter engagement action plan. The civic engagement team’s mission is to implement strategies to reach every student (based on the Ask Every Student Framework) in its voter registration, education, and turnout efforts.
In its 2024 action plan, the Inver Hills civic engagement team placed a major emphasis on faculty and classroom engagement. The team created a faculty incentive program that awarded points for activities such as incorporating voting information into a class syllabus, hosting a student voter ambassador in the classroom to give a short presentation, attending a faculty voter engagement workshop, etc. The points translated into stipends.
Over the course of the Fall 2024 semester, 29 faculty participated in the program, taking at least one of these actions, and 20 faculty earned a stipend for multiple actions. Many of these faculty were also identified as faculty civic champions for future years, to build upon this program’s success.