2023 student vote Research Network grants

In 2023, SVRN awarded grants to three academic teams for projects to increase nonpartisan civic learning, political engagement, and voter participation among college students. Results from these projects will be shared at the April 2024 SVRN Workshop.

2023 SVRN GRANTEES


  • Indiana University South Bend (IU)

    Are the student voter mobilization strategies impacted when they’re implemented? That’s why this project was started. This project was to see how effective mobilization tactics are, and when in the semester is a good time to do so. The goal is to track registration behavior to determine to what degree activities designed to push students toward the registration portal are successful in achieving that result, and to determine whether additional efforts throughout the semester have robust or diminishing returns.

Dr. Elizabeth Bennion of Indiana University South Bend, is studying a voter registration drive project involving a calendar of events at Indiana University campuses.

This program will include messaging from university leadership, class raps and registration drives, messages via the learning management system Canvas, tabling, and more. Events will be coordinated with related national dates including Constitution Day, National Voter Registration Day, and National Voter Education Week. The project will harness the power of the date and time stamps of online registration portals to track registration behavior to determine to what degree activities designed to push students toward the registration portal are successful in achieving that result, and to determine whether additional efforts throughout the semester have robust or diminishing returns.

Dr. Diane McMahon of Allegany College of Maryland (ACM) will test two kinds of voter education curricula in a large undergraduate class.

ACM is a small community college located in the Appalachian Mountains of Western Maryland, serving a student body that is 80% first-generation college students.


  • George Mason University (GMU)

    Is it working to have classroom presentations to try and mobilize stuent voters? Her project used an interesting strategy called “Class Raps”, which are short five minute annoucements proven to be effective in helping students to vote. The goal is to prove that classroom presentations are effective in influencing student attitudes and behavior.

Dr. Jennifer Victor of George Mason University will test whether “Class Raps” - 3 to 5 minute classroom presentations using Ask Every Student (AES) resources about getting registered and ready to vote - are more effective than other tactics and if it matters who gives the presentation.

Through a partnership with a local community college this RCT will also test whether the effectiveness of these presentations varies by campus.

Dr. Victor will also partner with the local League of Women Voters and other organizations, and will engage students and League members to make the classroom presentations. The RCT will pit classroom interventions against lower-cost interventions such as faculty announcements and email messages, as well as the additive effect of voter pledge cards. It will measure the effectiveness of these classroom presentations on both student attitudes and behavior.


  • Allegany College of Maryland (ACM)

    ACM is a small community college in the Appalachian mountains of Maryland that has a student body of 80% first generation students. This project is to test two kinds of voter education in a large undergrad class tto see which works best. In this project three sections of a large class were assigned to control or to complete one of two educational interventions (one class verbal teaching, two is a written/reflection class). We will see the results and turnout of the two groups in 2024, and see which was more effective.