Pennsylvania Western University has been designated as a Voter Friendly Campus for 2023-2024.

The California, Clarion and Edinboro campuses share the honor, which was started in 2016 through a partnership between Fair Election Center’s Campus Vote Project and the NASPA LEAD initiative. The goal of the Voter Friendly Campus program is to help institutions develop democratic engagement action plans that coordinate administrators, faculty and student organizations in civic and electoral engagement.

The university is working to establish a strong PennWest coalition from work that had been done at the legacy institutions. Members, led by students, are developing and deploying action plans on each campus to promote civic engagement learning opportunities.

Schools were evaluated on their work to support voter registration, voter education and voter turnout.

“We are honored by this designation, which reflects that hard work of our students across PennWest,” said coalition chair Sarah Zerfoss-Calhoun, assistant dean of students and assistant director of student development. “We are grateful to the many students, staff and faculty who volunteer to support our initiatives and events. Many offices and student organizations are campus partners, contributing each year to our planning and programming efforts.”

PennWest is one of 19 schools in Pennsylvania to earn the designation and one of two schools from Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.