Alverno College's Poll Worker Project Wins State-wide Award
March 6, 2014
Alverno College's Poll Worker Project has been awarded Wisconsin Campus Compact's
2014 Esther Letven Campus-Community Partnership Award. This award recognizes outstanding
partnerships between higher education and the community that produce measurable community
impact as well as student growth and learning.
Nearly 200 Alverno College students were actively involved in the political process
as they trained to be poll workers for the 2012 presidential election. The training
provided students an opportunity to practice their own effective citizenship, one
of the eight abilities embedded in the Alverno curriculum.
“Effective citizenship means our students take an active role in civic life,” said
Susan Leister, director of Alverno's Internship office and the coordinator of the
Poll Worker Project. “Taking part in the election process really opened their eyes
to the rigorous work that goes into running an election, and to the responsibility
they have to vote.”
In partnership with the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, Alverno has offered
poll worker training sessions on campus for three presidential or mid-term elections;
the first was for the 2008 presidential election. In 2010, the U.S. Election Assistance
Commission awarded Alverno a grant to train students as poll workers. The grant was
one of only 15 awarded nationally in a competition that drew more than 200 proposals.
It made it possible for Alverno and the Election Commission to recruit and train students
- including Spanish-speaking students - to help with election activities and recruit
future poll workers. Poll worker responsibilities include greeting voters, verifying
voters' polling sites, registering new voters, handing out ballots, handling voting
machines, and helping to maintain traffic flow at the sites.
The Alverno College Poll Worker Project and its partner, the City of Milwaukee Election
Commission, will be honored at the Wisconsin Campus Compact Annual Civic Engagement
Institute on March 20 in Madison.
Published on March 6, 2014 | Categories: Newsroom migrated press release