Buffalo State Named Voter-Friendly Campus as Part of National Campaign
Buffalo State University was named a Voter-Friendly Campus for 2023–2024, one of 258 campuses in 38 states and the District of Columbia selected by Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), and the only institution designated in the Buffalo area. This is the second time that Buffalo State has received this important designation.
The voter-friendly initiative recognizes institutions that have implemented practices that encourage their students to register and vote in the 2022 elections and in coming years. The designation is valid through December 2024. The mission of the Voter-Friendly Campus designation is to bolster colleges’ and universities’ efforts to help students overcome barriers to participating in the political process every year, not just during federal elections.
“As part of our effort to be designated a Voter-Friendly Campus, Buffalo State focused on voter education, registration, and turnout in partnership with a number of campus and community groups,” said Laura Hill Rao, director of the university’s Civic and Community Engagement Office (CCE), which spearheads student voter-registration efforts. “As a result, we have seen a 10 percent increase in Buffalo State students being registered to vote, and a 48 percent increase in students actually turning out to vote.”
Buffalo State also received a Voter-Friendly Campus designation in 2021, the year the CCE first learned of the initiative.
To increase student participation at the polls, CCE staff that year offered a voter-registration section on the CCE site, formed a partnership with the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), assigned interns to gather data and assist with social media outreach, and hosted virtual programming for students over the spring and fall 2020 semesters. In 2022, the CCE was named to the list of Washington Monthly’s 2022 Best Colleges for Student Voting.
“The Voter-Friendly Campus designation highlights an attribute of our students that makes me especially proud—they are civic-minded and socially responsible,” said Buffalo State President Katherine Conway-Turner. “It’s incredible to see the culture of voting that our campus has fostered, thanks to the proactive efforts of the CCE. A commitment to regular voting will serve our communities well here in Western New York and wherever our students live and work in the future.”
The institutions designated Voter-Friendly Campuses represent a wide range of two-year, four-year, public, private, rural, and urban campuses, collectively serving more than 3.5 million students. Notably, the list of designated institutions includes 49 minority-serving institutions and 13 historically Black colleges and universities, as well as 41 community colleges. See the full list online.
