News and Events
Tennessee Campus Civics Summit
In 2018, the Leadership & Governance Program at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy hosted the inaugural Tennessee Campus Civic Summit. Participating students had discussions, shared resources, and engaged with civic and campus leaders. The students created and launched civic engagement plans to engage institutional frameworks to improve student voting and civic literacy on their campus.
In 2018, the summit served 13 campuses; in 2019, two regional summits hosted 19 campuses; and by 2020, three regional summits hosted by The Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, Middle Tennessee State University, and the University of Memphis served 29 campuses.
Overall, the Summits impacted an estimated 200,000 undergraduate and graduate Tennessee students by providing institutional, nonpartisan voter education guidance. In the 2020 presidential election, voting by students at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville increased by nearly 21% from the 2016 election, reaching a 66% voting rate—hitting the national average for college student voting in the US since the data collection began—according to the 2020 report by the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement at Tufts University.
2022 Summit
The 2022 summit was held on Friday, February 25th, 2022 as a virtual-in-person hybrid. The student-led event featured a keynote speaker, a leadership luncheon with civic leaders and elected officials, collaborative campus roundtables, and presentations on the latest civic engagement strategies. Participants engaged in discussions, shared resources, and engaged with a community of civic and campus leaders.
Learn More
Do you want to learn about how to improve voter education, registration, and participation on your campus? Register for the Tennessee Campus Civic Summit, a conference bringing together Tennessee’s higher education institutions to learn and share best practices. If you are interested in participating, please email us at volsvote@utk.edu.
