Mobilizing the whole UMD community to strengthen democracy this spring
As students return from Spring Break, CDCE is doubling down on our efforts to mobilize the entire UMD community to strengthen democracy.
Dear Friends,
We are building an amazing learning community together at the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. When I started my work as Director of CDCE this fall, I shared the three core strategies we are pursuing to achieve our mission of mobilizing the entire UMD community to strengthen democracy.
By serving scholars across the university, advancing research with new knowledge from community partnerships, and growing capacity through project based learning, we can engage the unique knowledge and skills of every single individual in the UMD community in the work of strengthening American democracy.
Today, I’m thrilled to share a quick update on our progress. I’ve been humbled by the response to our vision for CDCE that UMD faculty, students, and alums, as well as community partners all across the state and nation have provided. On UMD Giving Day this month, a huge group of supporters collectively gave more than $5,000 to show they believe in the community we can build together. Throughout this academic year I’ve been inspired by the interdisciplinary conversations I’ve had with colleagues that spark new ideas. By building deeper relationships with our community partners I’ve gained important new insights into the practical realities facing local leaders and policy makers across the country. And I’ve seen how our impact can be multiplied by the energy and ingenuity of the UMD students who are the heart and soul of our university.
Whether you’re a scholar or student at UMD, a UMD alum, or a community member looking to make a difference, we want to hear from you and work together! Everyone - including you! - has something important and unique to bring to this work.
1. CDCE Serving Scholars across the University
We are building many exciting partnerships with scholars across the university! In February, we were honored to receive a $500,000 UMD Grand Challenges Impact Award along with our colleagues in the College of Education, School of Public Policy, and Merrill College of Journalism. This support will allow to use the amazing diversity of expertise from across these four schools to assess civic health across the state of Maryland and provide communities with the tools and knowledge they need to strengthen civic life.
We also are in the early stages of exploring a number of other compelling projects with scholars from across UMD. We are looking into the resilience of election infrastructure to shocks and weather related disasters with the Center for Disaster Resilience. We are working with the Maryland Crime Research and Innovation Center - part of UMD’s #1 ranked criminology program - to develop one of the nation’s first large scale datasets tracking whether the 700,000 Americans held in pre-trial detention or in jail for a misdemeanor offense on Election Day are being unconstitutionally disenfranchised. We are exploring ways to work with the Center for Substance Use and Health Research to see how we can evaluate the impact of the “Voting is Recovery” effort to integrate voter engagement in the work of peer recovery specialists. And more opportunities are popping up every day.
If you are a scholar at UMD and you think there is a way your expertise could apply to the work of strengthening democracy, please reach out! We’d love to explore how we might work together.
2. Advancing Research Through Community Partnerships
One the most exciting areas of growth for the Center this year has been our community partnerships.
We continue to convene the Vote 16 Research Network where we work with youth activists, local election officials, policy makers, and colleagues across the nation and world who are exploring how to talk about and effectively implement proposals to lower the voting age.
We also continue to play a leadership role in the Student Vote Research Network, where hundreds of community partners and scholars are working together to figure out how to achieve 100% student voting. Next month, we are proud to be co-presenting a session with the Campus Vote Project at the annual State of the Student Vote Research Workshop on the policy and cultural contexts that could enable 100% student voting.
We are also expanding two new projects with community partners working to build a more inclusive democracy. Next month, with our partners at VoteRiders we will share initial results of an analysis of how many Americans lacked voter ID in 2020. Through this partnership we are working to provide the public with new knowledge about ID access that in many cases has not been updated in nearly 20 years. We also have several new projects in the pipeline at the intersection of sports and voting, building on our recent analysis of what happened when 48 stadiums and arenas were used as voter centers and polling locations in 2020 and 2022.
In the coming weeks, we will be announcing new fellows who are joining CDCE to support new projects around voter education in high schools, the intersection of the music industry and voter engagement, and using public engagement strategies to support effective government transitions after the voters have spoken. We look forward to welcoming these fellows to campus and would love to introduce them to you!
3. Growing Capacity Through Project Based Learning
We are incredibly proud of the ways UMD students are contributing to the work of CDCE through project based learning opportunities this year! Our 2023 Fellow in News Polling, Jillian Rothschild, is doing great work with the Washington Post’s polling team. In that capacity, she works with two amazing UMD alums, Scott Clement, JPSM M.S. ’17, and Emily Guskin, GVPT ’06!
We also are thrilled by progress that a team of SPP Capstone students are making as part of their partnership with the Vote 16 Research Network. This fall, the Vote 16 Research Network Steering Committee directed our network to work together to establish a Vote 16 implementation guide. The capstone students have done amazing work in response to this request from the community. They have done extensive research into the laws and mechanics of municipal elections in the parts of the country most like to implement a Vote 16 policy, interviewed municipal officials that have done it before, and begun to design a useful and important guide. When the guide comes out this spring, the students will have made major progress in addressing one of the key knowledge gaps facing Vote 16 stakeholders around the country.
There are so many possibilities for great project based learning across our entire portfolio! This is an area where we are especially looking forward to growing CDCE’s work in the 2023-2024 academic year.
The Upshot
We are humbled by the response we’ve received to the vision for CDCE that I shared earlier this year. We are working hard to keep up with all the amazing opportunities that are emerging from this learning community! We are excited to go deeper with all of our partners to keep learning about what it will take to make American democracy strong and inclusive for all. And for those of you who we aren’t working with us yet, we’d love to hear from you! There is so much we can do together.
Thanks so much to all of you for your belief and support this year - together we truly can mobilize the whole UMD community to strengthen democracy.
Sincerely,
Mike Hanmer
Professor, Government and Politics
Director, Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement
Department of Government and Politics
College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Maryland