My fellow fellows,

The Higher Education Act of 1998 requires that U.S. colleges and
universities make a “good faith effort” to register students to vote, but many
schools have yet to meet the standards. For this reason, the Student
Association for Voter Empowerment (http://www.savevoting.org/) has coauthored a pledge with the United States Student Association and the Student PIRGS, with which
student leaders can lobby their college presidents, calling for practical administrative measures to increase voter participation. (The pledge, named “the American College and University Presidents Commitment to Civic Engagement” can be emailed to you upon request).

Whereas a report from Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center recently noted
that the nonvoting young are “more likely [than any other group] to cite
registration mistakes or a lack of registration knowledge as a reason why they
did not vote,” the goal of the document is to help institutions of higher
education eradicate such unawareness. Two specific examples of what the
commitment calls for are 1) dissemination of letters to every student mailbox
explaining how, why, where, and when to vote, as well as 2) making new student
orientation a fundamental outlet for registering all incoming students and
providing them with absentee resources if they prefer to vote in their home
district.

I truly hope you can join me in getting your college president to sign this
commitment; and if you are interested, please email me directly
(Matthew.Segal@savevoting.org).

Eleven diverse colleges have currently signed the document and we hope to get a
few more before our big press launch in a couple weeks.

We have also launched a new website dedicated to the commitment: http://www.presidentscommitment.org/ 

Thanks for your interest,

Matthew

2008 Fellow

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Matthew Segal
Executive Director
Student Association for Voter Empowerment
1615 L Street NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036
Matthew.Segal@savevoting.org
847-502-5012
www.savevoting.org