ROCK HILL, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) According to Washington Monthly Winthrop University’s students rank among the top schools in the country in voting. This year student voting and Involvement has been encouraged even more.
Student groups like the Winthrop Ambassadors, Winthrop Athletics and the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group all helping prepare and educate students and the community on voting.
This Winthrop University course American Parties and Practical Politics requires students to spend 20 hours getting involved in the election process volunteering for parties, campaigns or learning to become poll workers for this election. Many volunteering at the York County polls.
“I think it’s very important for students who are attending Winthrop for a college education, who might not be a part of the Rock Hill community, to learn more about Rock Hill,” says Winthrop Professor John Holder. “And this gives them a chance to get out in the community and talk to people, and interact with people, and see how the election process works.”
12 student voting ambassadors each reaching out to peers and the community — to educate voters on the 2020 election process — learning more about the community along the way.
“Because of COVID – it’s clearly a different year for us and we had to think of creative ways to reach our students — how we normally wouldn’t reach them, like we normally do on campus. So we really initiated our social media push for students where we’re trying to reach them via video and just different sorts of social media,” says, Director of the Winthrop University West Forum, Katarina Moyon.
Leaders say campuses can easily become a bubble but here at Winthrop, the university encourages students to get involved.
“We think that voting is really an initiative for campus that helps them understand what it is to be a citizen of South Carolina, a citizen of the local community and a citizen of the nation,” says Moyon.
One student leading the way says he believes this election experience will benefit him and others in the future.
“As Winthrop students we tend to graduate a lot of us tend to stay here and we do call Rock Hill home,” says Student President, Brandon Jackson. “So, if we want to make the change that we’d like to see in our community this is the community that will eventually call home, will eventually be Winthrop alum will be giving back and a lot of this comes full circle so it’s just very important.”
In the video above, CN2’s Rachel Richardson is speaking with university leaders about their voting efforts on campus.
