Vice Chancellor’s Corner
Vice Chancellor Student
Affairs, Manuel N. Gómez, Ph.D.
When I was in college, in the late 1960s, the atmosphere was either exhilarating or chaotic, depending on your perspective. My perspective found it to be a little bit of both, because as a young activist I relished the level of political and social engagement among students, but as a young Latino I was always aware of the deep scars of racial segregation and social exclusion with which America continues to struggle.
However it appeared to others, though, being a college student during that era was a life changing experience for me. Instead of feeling that the only way to deal with an unjust society was to either rebel or conform, I realized that many different options were available to me. And the combination of book learning and social interactions forged those options into real choices to be tested and evaluated. As my understanding of social history became less oppositional and more nuanced, my vocational choices were struck into bolder relief until it was clear that my passion was best matched with a career in education.
One of my earliest lessons in college was that education opened doors, and that the skills offered there – the ability to comprehend and reason and analyze and apply knowledge – were some of the most critical life skills I would ever acquire. Which is why, perhaps, I believe so strongly in the importance of a healthy co-curricular life for university students. College isn’t just a dress rehearsal for “life”; life is happening on and off our campuses, and we would be remiss if we did not help students understand and navigate certain important challenges. One of those is the privilege of voting, something college students between the ages of 18 and 24 do in the lowest average numbers compared to every other age bracket of adults. As someone who went to college during the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, the low voting participation rate for students is a particularly poignant contrast to my own experience, even though I understand through the experiences of my own children how easy it is for young adults to feel distanced from the responsibilities of choosing society’s leaders. Which is, perhaps, part of the logic in the Higher Education Act’s requirement that colleges and universities remain proactive in student voter registration in order to retain their federal funding.
It is not sufficient for us to simply provide students with the means to vote; rather, we must furnish every student with a voter registration form and encourage students to vote. And with a presidential election not so many months away, that mandate is very much on our minds right now. So if you visit the campus over the next two quarters, you are likely to see ASUCI and AGS – our undergraduate and graduate student governments – actively soliciting voter registration forms and providing voter information. UCI is fortunate in that both of our student governments are very active in this process, and I am very grateful for the energy they put into informing students about how important voting is – regardless of who they end up voting for.
UCI takes this challenge very seriously because we know that participation in voting increases with age, income, and education, correlating much more strongly at the top of each category. Because education still provides the best opportunity for social mobility, these trends are significant, and they impact those whose voting participation is the lowest.
I know that not all enrolled students will be eligible to vote, but for those of you with children who are, I hope that you will join our efforts to boost the voting rates of our nation’s youngest and potentially most influential voters. Although our students may not yet be able to see how important voting is, those of us who have lived through various societal boons and dips certainly do. And all of the analytical skills our students are developing through their academic training are equally important in giving them the tools to independently evaluate and consciously choose every in vote they cast. While our students are traditionally very focused on their schoolwork and on their career choices, they are also gaining very valuable life experience in all of the interactions and activities and experiences of life at a major university, and we know that their life choices are being framed by the breadth and depth of their UCI educational experiences. We want them to make the most of those choices in the smallest and largest of ways, whether that be helping to elect a club president, a student government president, or president of the United States. Along with that physics exam or dance concert, or composition essay, voting is a positive investment in every student’s future.
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