Volunteer in the Election: Baldwin-Wallace College
Berea, Ohio
Baldwin Wallace College — Dr. Tiffany Hansbrough of Ohio’s Baldwin Wallace College assigned her leadership students to volunteer with a campaign of their choice. She gave them the contact information for the McCain and Obama field offices and for the nonprofit Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition, then required the students to volunteer for 15 hours with a presidential campaign of their choice, a local or state election race (including ballot initiatives), or a nonprofit group engaging in election-related activities. She also had her students log their experiences in journal entries, providing details about what occurred, the participants, and their impressions. Students are also required to write a paper after the election evaluating their experiences.
Registering Inmates: Baldwin-Wallace College
Baldwin-Wallace Students Register 700 Inmates in Ohio Jails
Berea, Ohio
Students at Cleveland’s Baldwin-Wallace College participated in Ohio Free the Vote, a 2004 project that sent escorted volunteers to register people in local jails who, because they were awaiting trial, were eligible to vote and gave them forms to request absentee ballots which were then delivered and collected by the Cayahoga Board of Elections. Baldwin Wallace students participating in a class of the Brain Leadership program registered over 700 people to vote in the 2004 Presidential election. Students made a concrete difference, compared their own experiences about civic participations to the analyses in the books they read for their courses, and saw their existing assumptions challenged about who should be allowed to participate in shaping a democratic society. View a longer description including a powerful reflection by a Baldwin Wallace student who found her assumptions shaken to the core.
