Support Student Voting & Civic Education

Support Student Voting & Civic Education

Faculty and staff can play an important role by helping students access voter education resources. The following page contains links to relevant Penn State policies, guidance for faculty and staff, and approved resources that you can share with students.

Relevant Penn State Policies

Before talking with students about voting, faculty and staff should review the following Penn State policies to ensure they understand their roles and responsibilities.

Essential Guidelines

• Information about registering to vote, voting, ballot measures, and candidates for elective office must be accurate and presented in a non-partisan way. We strongly urge you to use Penn State Votes-approved resources.
• Federal and Pennsylvania law prohibit offering or providing money, gifts, rewards, or other things of value in exchange for voting, registering to vote, or voting for or against a particular candidate or ballot measure. Faculty and staff should not offer extra credit, assignment points, prizes, gift cards, food, or other incentives in exchange for registering to vote, voting, proving that a student voted, abstaining from voting, or supporting a particular candidate, party, or ballot measure.
• Class time should not be used for completing voter registration forms and faculty/staff should not collect voter registration forms.

You may be approached by outside groups or student groups asking to share voting information in your classroom or other spaces. While ultimately decisions about classroom guests remain within an individual instructor’s discretion, we caution you against inviting unvetted third-party groups into your classroom, as the quality of the training these individuals may have received, the quality and accuracy of the materials they share, and their ability to remain non-partisan can vary significantly. 

Please also note that Penn State Policy AD92 prohibits the use of classroom time or University resources to promote or oppose a political candidate, party, or campaign. Elected officials can be valuable classroom guests but require advance planning and consultation. This policy also requires advance notice to designated University offices before any political candidate visits campus, with additional notice to the Chancellor or Chief Executive for Commonwealth campus visits.

What You Can Do

While incentivizing registration and voting is strictly prohibited, Penn State’s core mission is education. Penn State faculty and staff may hand out non-partisan educational materials related to voting and registration and may incentivize learning about voting, elections, and contemporary topics. 

• Pursuant to Penn State Policy AD92, faculty may encourage civic engagement through non-partisan educational efforts, e.g., reminders about registration or voting deadlines, and academically relevant assignments, provided that any academic credit offered is based on clearly defined educational objectives—not on whether a student registers, votes, or votes in a particular way.
• Beyond sharing basic registration and voting information, broader civic education should be tied to course learning objectives and faculty expertise.

Consider timing your activities as follows:

Penn State Votes Approved Resources for Classrooms

• Updated materials, including handouts to share with students about how to register and vote, if they are eligible to do so, will be available in August.

If students have questions about voting and voter registration processes, please encourage them to visit psuvotes.psu.edu, email psuvotes@psu.edu, or visit 103 HUB-Robeson Center.

Educational Resources

The Civic Education Collaborative brings together experts from across Penn State to support civic education. Our partners include: Penn State Votes, the Office for General Education, the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, Penn State University Libraries, the School of Public Policy, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, and Penn State’s News Literacy Initiative.