MC Votes working to boost voter engagement among students

Oct. 28, 2020

MC Men's Basketball Team Promotes Voting
MC men’s basketball team members show their support for registering to vote with MC Votes.

Throughout this semester, a relatively new student-led organization on the Maryville College campus has been able to increase voter engagement by registering students to vote and educating them on current issues and policies, candidates and the voting process.

The organization, MC Votes, is nonpartisan and does not attempt to persuade students to vote a specific way or for a certain candidate, said Ryan Indelicato ’17, CCM and Bonner Program coordinator and MC Votes advisor.

“MC Votes seeks to help students make an informed decision when they vote, and it also strives to discuss the importance of civic engagement and responsibility,” the advisor said.

Reagan Monday ’22, a junior political science major and member on the MC Votes executive team, called voting “one of the most important things in our society.”

“Many people fought so hard to be able to use their voice in our government, and it’s up to us to ensure we aren’t taking their fight for granted,” she added. “It is one of the ways that we are able to voice our opinions and choose our representation in this country, and we all should absolutely be able to do so.”

According to the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE), only 65% of the Maryville College student body were registered to vote in 2016, and only 40.7% of the student body voted.

Monday said the goal this year is to get 60% of the student body to vote. (NSLVE will release results next summer.) To better reach students, MC Votes partnered with many organizations, residence halls and classrooms. By the Oct. 5 registration deadline, MC Votes had hosted events with the College’s softball, women’s and men’s basketball, cheer and volleyball teams; residents of Beeson, Carnegie, Lloyd and Gibson halls; the Student Government Association; and Scots Science Scholars. The organization also visited four classes, held an event at Camp 4 with Mountain Challenge and met individually with some students.

“I have no doubt that there were a good number of students who may not have taken the initiative to get registered or simply known what to do, had we not reached out,” Indelicato said. “We’ve now turned our attention more toward education. We planned a couple of different events to get people out to vote on early voting day and on Election Day and also help educate people so that they can make the decision that’s best for them.”

MC students promote voting
MC students encourage others to vote.

On Oct. 22, MC Votes hosted an “educational Zoom event” for the Maryville College community. This event provided information about some of the bigger issues that are being talked about in the 2020 presidential election and where the major candidates and political parties stand. Topics of discussion included immigration/DACA, the economy, healthcare, the Coronavirus Pandemic, racial/ethnic inequality, police reform and appointments on the Supreme Court.

On Oct. 26, the organization promoted a time when students could gather on campus and together walk over to the Blount County Public Library to vote early. Transportation was arranged for those who could not walk but still wanted to participate.

“This is a really polarizing election with a lot of strong opinions involved. There are a lot of future decisions that will be impacted by who wins,” Indelicato said. “A lot of people are looking at this election as an election that can really change how our country operates, more so than past elections.”

MC Votes plans to continue to make a difference at the College, even after the 2020 presidential election. Moving forward, MC Votes wants to institutionalize voting on campus. Indelicato said that one of the goals is to get voter registration integrated into freshmen orientation. That would give every student coming in, if they want to, the chance and the opportunity to vote. The organization also wants to work with faculty and get election dates and deadlines into class syllabi so students can see that information repeatedly. Indelicato said that MC Votes hopes to work with college administrators to make Election Day a campus holiday or put policies in place that allow students to miss class to cast their vote.  

“We really want to make voting a bigger part of campus culture. We really want to make voting a part of the Maryville College experience,” Indelicato said.

Written by Grant Agnew ’22, Communications Assistant

Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders, to study everything, so that they are prepared for anything — to address any problem, engage with any audience and launch successful careers right away. Located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, Maryville College offers nearly 1,200  students from around the world both the beauty of a rural setting and the advantages of an urban center, as well as more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last. Today, our 10,000 alumni are living life strong of mind and brave of heart and are prepared, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”