By Ashna Balroop

University of Maryland’s Vote (Fearlessly)! and TerpsVote campaigns urged students over the past couple of months to make their voices heard at the polls. 

The presidential election will be held on Nov. 5 between Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump. UMD has taken steps to encourage civic participation amongst its students through its Vote (Fearlessly)! campaign.

The Vote (Fearlessly)! exhibit is a non-partisan mobile pop-up where members of the UMD community can ask questions about voting. It was developed by the faculty, students, alums and staff from the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. They partnered with TerpsVote, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the College of Arts and Humanities and the Maryland Democracy Initiative. 

Ronit Eisenbach, a professor of architecture and director of the creative placemaking minor and the creative placemaking collaborative, helped bring the exhibit to life. She worked with students across multiple majors to decide on an organization to make an exhibit. 

“After a year of talking to people [about] where we should put our efforts, it felt like the organization that we could best support was TerpsVote,” Eisenbach said. “TerpsVote was doing great work, but it didn’t have the visibility that it needed to have to do even better work.” 

Eisenbach admitted that it was unclear at points as to how the project would progress, but it ended up fostering important conversations on campus. 

“We didn’t know what this would look like, but we were able, in the end, to create something that has become a space for public discourse for engagement that wouldn’t have been there before, and it has become a magnet for that,” Eisenbach said.

Craig Kier, the director of the campus-wide initiative of Arts for All, explained that the exhibit has become mobile, and its mobility can be credited to their success. It has traveled to the School of Public Policy, football games and outside Yahentamisti Dining Hall. 

“Now it’s having this final residency over the next few weeks up through the election, right in the middle of Stamp food court,” Kier explained. 

Kier believes the exhibit demonstrates UMD’s collaboration as a whole when it comes to voting.

“When we combine all of the expertise areas that exist across our vast campus, we can do extraordinary things,” Kier said. “This is just one way our University is committed to ensuring people have access to information for the general election and voting moving forward.” 

Lena Morreale Scott, the director of the civic education and engagement initiative, within the College of Education and the principal investigator for the Maryland democracy initiative, said the Maryland democracy initiative supports civic engagement across the university.

“It has created an incredible energy on campus,” Scott said. “And so I’m hoping that all of us, collectively, can sort of keep up the energy to keep getting the kind of government, democracy and communities that we deserve and move on.”

Naomi Cohen, the coordinator for social action and democratic engagement at UMD and the person behind TerpsVote, believes that the Vote(Fearlessly!) exhibit’s interactive aspects have helped provide students with meaningful interactions about voting. 

“They’re thinking a little bit more deeply about, like, why they might be voting in the upcoming election, so that’s had a really big impact on the interactions that we’ve had with students,” Cohen said. 

Lucian Jessel, a TerpsVote ambassador and junior majoring in government and politics, international business and German, said that the work he is doing with TerpsVote is influential.

“I’m a politics student, so voting and democracy are important to me, and I think it’s really important to give college students information on how they can do this because it’s a confusing process,” Jessel explained. “I love being able to give people that information.” 

Jessel knows that he is making an impact throughout campus because of the feedback he has received. 

“One thing I love is when I see the familiar faces coming back and saying, ‘I registered,’ or, ‘I just requested my mail-in,’ or ‘I got my mail-in this week. I’m so excited to fill it out,’ or ‘yeah, I just voted,’” Jessel said. 

Devin Bowman, a freshman philosophy, politics, and economics major, thinks that UMD is doing a good job promoting civic engagement. 

“UMD and TerpsVote are doing a good job at encouraging voting efficacy, and I think that colleges should make an effort to get students to the polls or at least make them accessible,” Bowman said. 

Ingrid Yang, a freshman psychology major, said that this election is extremely important. 

“Everyone is voting,” Yang explained. “[It’s important] because my voice will be heard.”

Featured Image: The Vote (Fearlessly)! pop-up stationed inside the Adele H. Stamp Student Union food court. Photo by Ashna Balroop.