Get Ready to Vote! Election Day is Tuesday, November 5

2024: Another Historic Election

This year, fall will not only bring crisp air and the warm colors of the season (and pumpkin-spice everything) but also an historic presidential election sure to stir controversy, excitement, and anxiety among the MIT community. If you are teaching this semester, you may want to say something to recognize these historic times but may not know how or when to start a conversation. You can encourage students’ civic engagement by providing them with the resources they need to get ready to vote!

What can we do?

Consider adding the following information from MIT’s ALL IN working group to your syllabus:

REGISTER TO VOTE

MIT partners with TurboVote — a non-profit website that seeks to increase voter turnout by helping its users register to vote, find polling places, and research election issues — to help students, faculty, and staff register to vote in local, state, and national elections, by mail or in person, whether they reside in Massachusetts or another state.
It takes five minutes or less to register, and you can use it to request an absentee ballot and/or subscribe to reminders about registration and voting deadlines and locations in relevant elections.

Throughout the semester:

You can establish norms for classroom discussions that allow all students voices to be heard and respected.
You can model how students should engage in civil discourse and meaningful dialogue.
You can remind ourselves and our students that we can all work together. Regardless of our political affiliations, we can strengthen the MIT community by collectively identifying and seeking solutions to the pressing social, economic, and technological issues facing our nation and world.
You can highlight the relevance of our subject content and disciplinary research to pressing governmental policy decisions, for example, in the areas of medicine and health, energy and the environment, transportation, and basic research.
You can encourage students to register to vote and to spread the word to others about the importance of voting.

Additional resources:

MITVote is a non-partisan student organization at MIT working to increase voter turnout and student engagement in local, state, and federal elections.
PKG Center’s Civic Engagement and Voting page offers information for students about how non-partisan civic action can lead to social change.
MIT TurboVote registration page gives you the option to register to vote using a campus or home address.
MIT Election Data + Science Lab (MEDSL) applies scientific principles to how elections are studied and administered and is aimed at improving the democratic experience for all U.S. voters.

Panel Discussion

On October 12, MIT’s ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge hosted a discussion titled “Why the 2022 Elections Might Determine the Future of Democracy in the US” featuring Charles Stewart, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Chris Capozzola, 2018 MicVicar Faculty Fellow and professor of history, and Jessica Huseman, editorial director of the online publication Votebeat. You can watch the recording below or read the full article on MIT News.

TLL Workshop

On October 26, 2020 we hosted a workshop and discussion on “Teaching in a Tense Political Climate” The workshop aimed to provide tools and perspectives for faculty and instructors who feel that they need to say something about the election or current political landscape, but are concerned with exposing their political opinion or excluding students whose political leanings may differ from their own.

Charles Stewart, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science, explored ways instructors can discuss the election and related topics with students. Ray Feller also discussed the impact of the election on students’ well-being and stress. Watch the recording below.

Office of Student Support and Wellbeing

Supporting Students Through an Election
On October 23, 2020 David Randall, Senior Associate Dean for Student Support and Wellbeing, shared advice and resources for faculty and staff to support students leading up to and following the 2020 election.

Articles

Encourage Your Students to Vote MIT Faculty Newsletter, September/October, 2022.
Navigating Politics, TLL Teaching Resource
Addressing Difficult Events in the Classroom, TLL blog post.
Structuring Classroom Discussions About Elections, the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching and the Edward Ginsberg Center at the University of Michigan.
Avoid Post Election Student Unrest, by Debra Mashek, former executive director of the Heterodox Academy, for Inside Higher Ed.