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First Vote NC: Making Civic Engagement a “Habit” for Teens

By Staff | July 26, 2018 Newswire

Hunter Buxton once took a two-and-a-half-hour trip home from college just to vote—in a local election.

However, that type of civic commitment was the norm in her Concord, N.C. household and her parents would have been mortified if she hadn’t done her part for local democracy.“I grew up in a household where we talked politics a lot,” Buxton said. “It was something that was just very much a part of the culture of my household.”

Drawing on her upbringing, and a desire to make civic participation a more ubiquitous part of North Carolina’s youth culture, Buxton founded First Vote NC in 2016. Through mock simulation elections and civic education, the program brings home the reality of voting for North Carolina’s high schoolers, endeavoring to create civic “habits” the students carry over once they’re old enough to vote in real elections.

High schools typically teach civics, but not always the real world mechanics of the voting process, Buxton said. First Vote NC fills that gap.“First Vote NC offers the last part of that civics education bridge—the real world completion of that knowledge,” Buxton said. To take First Vote NC’s message wider, Buxton became a part of EducationNC in 2017. “I liked that they were a nonpartisan organization and that they already had their outreach so deep in the schools.”

First Vote NC’s mission compliments EducationNC’s desire to expand educational opportunities for all children, said Molly Osborne, EducationNC’s director of policy and community engagement. “As part of our mission is to expand educational opportunities for all children and encourage informed citizen participation, First Vote NC fits naturally under the EducationNC umbrella organization,” Osborne said. “We believe First Vote NC provides an important educational opportunity for students, preparing them to graduate civic-ready in addition to career- and college-ready.”

Encouraging civic participation among young people is especially crucial as Millennials now make up as a large a percentage of the electorate as Baby Boomers.  Millennials (a generation defined as people born between the early 1980s and mid 1990s)  currently represent around 31 percent of the electorate, according to data from the Pew Research Center—that’s the same percentage share as Boomers, but Millennials continue to have the lowest voter turnout of any age group.

Only 46 percent of Millennials voted in the last presidential election, compared to 69 percent of Boomers. Myriad reasons are given for millennials low voter turnout. Buxton pointed to a fractured information and social media culture, while Osborne noted a study that found that weekly instructional time in history and social studies in early and middle school grades had declined since the early 2000s.

Buxton hopes that First Vote NC will continue to play a role in changing those numbers.

“Just like an environment is healthy when there’s bio-diversity, so is a democracy when there is age diversity,” Buxton said. “The simplest way to gain influence as a cohort is to become informed and participate. If young people want to have agency, they need to vote”.

Published in Newswire.
Tags: Civic Engagement

Director’s Log | July 2018 IEI First In Future: Chancellor Robin Gary Cummings, UNC Pembroke

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David Brooks is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, a position he began in September 2003, as well as an Executive Director at the Aspen Institute. He is currently a commentator on “The PBS Newshour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He is the author of “Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There” and “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.” In April of 2015 he came out with his fourth book, “The Road to Character,” which was a number 1 New York Times bestseller. Mr. Brooks also teaches at Yale University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Dr. Darin J. Waters is the Executive Director of the Office of Community Engagement, and an Associate Professor of History at UNC Asheville in Asheville, North Carolina. As a professor, Dr. Waters teaches courses in American history, North Carolina History, Appalachian History, African American and Brazilian History. He also specializes in the history of race relations in both the United States and Latin America. In his role as the Executive Director of the UNC Asheville Office of Community Engagement, Waters works closely with campus and community leaders, representing an array of community-based organizations, to strengthen and build new partnerships for and with the university.

Waters is the co-host of The Waters and Harvey Show on Blue Ridge Public Radio. He currently serves as a member of The North Carolina Historic Markers Commission, the board of the National Blue Ridge Heritage Area, the board of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial of Historic Asheville, and the North Carolina Civil War History Center. Find out more about his work at darinwaters.com.

Mary Lou Addor serves as the NC Sentinel Landscapes Partnership & Adjunct Assistant Professor out of NC State University. Addor is a leader in the areas of leadership and professional development, facilitation and public participation, conflict management, team building, negotiation and coaching. She is the former director of the Natural Resources Leadership Institute. She is concerned with the ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective organizational change.