Student Life and Leadership (SLL) centers non-partisan voter education, empowerment, and outreach through comprehensive civic engagement initiatives. All civic engagement initiatives coordinated by SLL are nonpartisan in order to be inclusive, approachable, and accessible to all students, faculty, and staff at UNC to align with UNC’s strategic goals around Promoting Democracy. SLL employees help coordinate faculty, staff, and student-focused initiatives and collaborations in order to increase student education and civic engagement. As a result of SLL’s work on campus with civic engagement, UNC Chapel Hill has been recognized as one of ALL IN’s Most Engaged Campuses for the 2022 midterm season, a member of the 2023-2024 Voter Friendly Campus cohort, and submitting a Highly Established Action Plan for 2022. In 2021, UNC received recognition from ALL IN’s DemocrACCy Initiative for the highest voter turnout among ACC affiliate institutions, with 82% of eligible students voting in the 2020 election. Student Life and Leadership plays an integral role in coordinating with UNC-based stakeholders, Chapel Hill community partners, and an expansive population of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in order to advance civic engagement. Below are several examples of our civic engagement initiatives including:
- Hosting and coordinating an asynchronous voter registration training for all registered student organizations and university sponsored organizations
- Advising and coordinating the Tar Heels Vote initiative
- Submitting annual action plans to ALL IN and Campus Vote Project
- Representing UNC in the ALL IN DemocrACCy Challenge
- Coordinating National Civic Holiday programming (including but not limited to: National Voter Registration Day, National Voter Education Week, National Vote Early Day, etc)
- Supporting nonpartisan campus-wide initiatives related to voter registration, education, and empowerment