By Jace Gibson ’26
Shenandoah University has been given a 2025-26 Voter Friendly Campus designation for the third straight time by the Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. Shenandoah is one of 272 campuses nationwide to receive the designation, which recognizes institutions that have planned and implemented practices that encourage their students to register and vote.
The mission of the 2025-26 Voter Friendly Campus designation is to bolster colleges’ and universities’ efforts to help students overcome barriers to participating in the political process each year, according to a Voter Friendly Campus news release. Shenandoah University was evaluated based on its written plan for how it intended to register, educate, and turnout student voters in 2024, how it facilitated voter engagement efforts on campus, and a final analysis of its efforts.
Shenandoah also received a Voter Friendly Campus designation, which is awarded in two-year cycles, in 2021-22 and 2023-24.
“We’re thrilled to receive this designation again,” said Rebecca Gibson, Shenandoah’s director of civic engagement. “The students who work in the university’s Center for Civic Engagement dedicate a tremendous amount of time to their voter engagement efforts. They truly want to foster a campus culture that encourages and celebrates voter participation.”
In the years leading up to the 2024 elections, Shenandoah University, led by its Center for Civic Engagement, worked to increase student voter engagement through a series of events and on-campus opportunities that promoted education around, and participation in, the U.S. democratic system. These included voter information and registration tables for students; voter registration presentations during undergraduate and graduate classes, athletic team meetings, and other student programs; a deliberative dialogue series that explored various topics related to the 2024 presidential election; free rides to and from a local polling place in Winchester, Virginia, on Election Day and during the early voting period; and an Election Day celebration.
According to the Voter Friendly news release, the institutions designated Voter Friendly Campuses for 2025-26 represent a range of two-year, four-year, public, private, rural, and urban campuses that collectively serve over four million students, including 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities and 47 community colleges.
About NASPA
NASPA is the leading association for the advancement, health, and sustainability of the student affairs profession. Its work provides high-quality professional development, advocacy, and research for 15,000 members in all 50 states, 25 countries, and eight U.S. territories.
About The Fair Elections Center
Fair Elections Center is a non-partisan organization dedicated to safeguarding the future of democracy through innovative efforts focused on voting rights and civic engagement. It uses advocacy, litigation, organizing, education, and technology to protect and expand the right to vote, understanding the particular impact on disenfranchised, underrepresented, and marginalized communities. Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project works with universities, community colleges, faculty, students and election officials to reduce barriers to student voting and helps campuses institutionalize reforms that empower students with the information they need to register and vote.
About Shenandoah University
Shenandoah University was established in 1875, and is headquartered at the top of Virginia, in Winchester, Virginia, with additional educational sites in Clarke and Loudoun counties, and online offerings. Shenandoah is a private, nationally recognized university that blends professional career experiences with wide-ranging education. With approximately 4,400 students in more than 200 areas of study in six different schools, Shenandoah promotes a close-knit community rich in creative energy and intellectual challenge. Shenandoah students collaborate with accomplished professors who provide focused, individual attention, all the while leading several programs to be highly nationally ranked. Through innovative partnerships and programs at both the local and global level, there are exceptional opportunities for students to learn in and out of the classroom. Shenandoah empowers its students to improve the human condition and to be principled professionals and leaders wherever they go. For more information, visit su.edu.
