Faculty Toolkit for Civic Engagement
Faculty are a key resource in supporting student engagement in the democratic process! From your course content, discussions and readings, to the critical thinking, inquiry and analysis you lead students through, your work helps build students’ civic skills, knowledge, and identity.
This Toolkit for Civic Engagement was developed by MiddVotes and Democracy Initiatives at Middlebury College. Our hope for this toolkit is to provide you with clear and concise voting information that can be easily added to your lectures, as well as resources for you should you want to take a deeper dive into building civic dialogue and engagement in the classroom.
Our Team
The Democracy Initiatives team of student and professional staff are here to support your work fostering student civic engagement! We can help you brainstorm ideas, plan an event, or come talk with your students about voting. We are your connection with the wider community of practice, here at Middlebury and beyond, working to advance democratic participation and civic skills.
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Jason Duquette-Hoffman: Assistant Director, Center for Community Engagement
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Daniza Tazabekova: MiddVotes student organization president, CCE Democracy Initiatives intern
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Laura McDow: MiddVotes Committee Chair, CCE Democracy Initiatives intern
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Mauricio Gonzalez: CCE Democracy Initiatives intern
Voting at Middlebury: What You Need to Know
Who is Voting at Middlebury, Who Isn’t, and What Can We Do?
Middlebury is provided with comprehensive voting data completed by the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE). These statistics allow us to personalize our action plan to address specific areas or demographics that have lower voting rates.
In the 2020 national election, among Middlebury students*:
- 85.7% of eligible and registered voters ended up voting in the elections
- 82% of first year students voted
- 76% of 2nd/3rd/4th year students voted
Want to take a deeper dive into this data? Review the 2020 IDHE NSLVE Report
There is significant data that reports if someone has a plan to vote they are more likely to actually vote. A large part of our work over the past year and a half has focused on creating incentives to help the first year class pledge to vote. We have created a First Year Dorm Voting Competition where students in all four dorms pledge to vote and those with the most pledges wins a bonfire. Our first implementation, last year, was incredibly successful in creating conversation and engaging the community on voting practices.
- 65% of the student body does not vote in person
Middlebury is an institution that attracts a large portion of out-of-state students. This means that most of the student body votes by mail in their home state. Mail in ballot rules and deadlines differ significantly based on the state in which one is voting. Our goal is to continue to provide students with clear and concise information on mail in ballot deadlines in order to create a smooth and efficient process for them.
On Middlebury’s campus, students of color access their vote at lower rates than their white peers. It is our collective work to reduce barriers, increase access and facilitate voting equity for every eligible student. Throughout the fall, we will be registering voters at a wide range of events across campus and building partnerships with cultural organizations and affinity groups.
*All data is from the 2020 NSLVE Report completed by the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education and the Tufts College of Civic Life
Campus Resources
Canvas Resources
Access this Faculty Toolkit for Civic Engagement on Canvas, with links to resources like tools to implement in the classroom and campus partners doing this work. Enroll in our Canvas course here!
Embed our Voting Info Module into your Canvas Course!
Support student civic engagement and offer detailed, vetted voting information right in your Canvas course, with the push of a button! We have developed this module to be easy to import, low burden for students to engage with, and full of all the critical information they need to be engaged in the democratic process. Contact Jason Duquette-Hoffman to get the module!
Course Slidedeck
We have created a series of weekly single slides to throw into your classroom presentations with links to register to vote, check registration status, request an absentee ballot, find polling places and more!
Low on text, with QR codes students can scan from their seats to find out more, these are a low-effort, high-impact way to make sure your students have voting on their minds!
Democratic Action Plan
Annually, we develop and update the Middlebury College Democratic Action Plan, a robust roadmap for supporting student democratic participation. We work with higher education institutions around the country through our partnership with the Students Learn, Students Vote coalition, our participation in the All In Campus Challenge, and our leadership in NESCAC Votes. We partner with campus programs and faculty through the Davis Conflict Transformation Collaborative and our new initiative - the Middlebury Does Democracy Campus Coalition. Through these partnerships we are able to share and learn innovative approaches to student civic engagement, and enrich our own campus practices by bringing this learning and these resources back for you.
Check back in early fall for information about our 2025-2026 Democratic Action Plan.
Campus Partners in this Work
We don’t do this work alone! Our campus partners include:
- Middlebury College Engaged Listening Project: A Fellows program, teaching toolkit and additional resources for faculty in listening and dialogue.
- Katherine Wasserman Davis Conflict Transformation Collaborative: Faculty research support, undergraduate and graduate programs, dialogue programming and resources.
- Middlebury College Center for Community Engagement: Funding, programs and events for community-connected learning and engagement.
- Middlebury College Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Resources, training, programs and support for faculty, students and staff.
- Middlebury College Center for Teaching, Learning and Research: Faculty support across a range of practice - look for our partnership programming with CTLR on voting and civic engagement in the classroom!
Conflict Transformation
The Davis Conflict Transformation Collaborative at Middlebury College hosts events and provides resources for intergroup dialogue and restorative justice practices.
Conflict Transformation has a new event series called the Good Talks series, which offers short overviews from experts on political conversations followed by guided small group conversations. For more information, including upcoming Good Talks and previous recordings and discussion guides, visit the Good Talks website.
You may get in contact with the Conflict Transformation Collaborative, and sign up for the Conflict Transformation email newsletter (3x/year), by emailing conflicttransformation@middlebury.edu.
Middlebury Does Democracy Campus Coalition
Our Middlebury Does Democracy Campus Coalition of faculty, staff and students connect periodically through the academic year to share ideas and collaborate on how to foster student democratic engagement at Middlebury.
- Contact Jason Duquette-Hoffman at the Center for Community Engagement to learn more!
Other Resources
In addition to the expertise and support available to you here at Middlebury, here are some resources we have curated from the wider community of practice:
Election Information
- Scholars Strategy Network: Election Resources for Faculty: Collection of information and resources on voter registration, voter education, and voter turnout.
- Vote.org: Everything You Need to Vote: Comprehensive voter registration and engagement resources for students and faculty:
- Students Learn Students Vote Faculty Coalition: Resource Library: Searchable resource library with resources on voting access, voter registration, voter education, institutionalization, coalition building, and more.
Classroom Implementation
- Debate for Civic Learning: A Model for Renewing Higher Education’s Civic Mission: Study examining student civic skills development associated with a debate-based pedagogy
- Integrating Civic Engagement into Canvas Page: Central page that provides links to numerous resources that help professors implement civic engagement and voter education information into Canvas and other online platforms.
- Civic Engagement Academic Integration: Homepage that compiles resources to help professors understand academic integration of civic engagement and resources for faculty engagement.
- Champions Faculty Toolkit: Sign up to receive a toolkit that provides resources to increase and encourage other faculty members to add civic engagement components to their courses
- Election-Ready Lesson Planning Guide: Lesson planning guide with civically focused learning objectives
- Election-Ready Resources: Compilation of resources and assignment ideas that professors can use in their courses
- Civic Engagement Resource Database: Database that compiles syllabi from courses that have a civic engagement component to help guide professors in creating their own syllabi
- Student Civic Action Scorecard: List of activities that help students become civically active
- All In Faculty Guide: Guide for faculty with resources including email and canvas templates and syllabus language.
- Clemson Civic Engagement Syllabi: Database that compiles syllabi from courses that have a civic engagement component to help guide professors in creating their own syllabi
- Project Pericles: Database that allows faculty to post their syllabi which have implemented a civic engagement component
- Student Voting and College Political-Campaign Activities
- In addition to numerous resources on increasing student voting turnout,The American Council on Education has compiled information that includes different permissible and impermissible campus and course-related activities.
- Examples of acceptable activities:
- Creating voter registration information programming
- Nonpartisan voter registration encouragement
- Voter encouragement and deadline reminders
- Rearranging the course calendar to allow students to have off on election day
Classroom Dialogue
- Constructive Dialogue Institute Free Speech and Inclusion: How College Students Are Navigating Shifting Speech Norms: A 2023 report on free speech and expression on college campuses
- Constructive Dialogue Institute: Five Practices to Foster Constructive Dialogue in Your Classroom: Action steps to use constructive dialogue in learning environments
- Project Pericles: Deliberative Dialogue: Framework for utilizing deliberative dialogue discussions to connect course content to real-world policy and foster exploration of students’ stances on critical civic issues
- Scholars Strategy Network: How Faculty Can Prepare to Handle the Post-Election Classroom: Guide to navigating post-election challenges in the classroom.