MSU to host CEEP for the first time this fall

The Campus Election Engagement Project looks to educate students on voting.

Emmanuella Shokare
Staff Writer

Campus Election Engagement Project, also known as CEEP, is a project that helps universities and colleges to educate students about voting. The CEEP weekly meetings are held every Friday at the Community Engagement Office (CSU 173) at noon and students are invited to come.  They table on Fridays at the CSU and Dining Hall to help people register. 

According to their handbook, “CEEP helps colleges and universities use their institutional resources to get students involved in elections by helping them register, volunteer, learn about candidates and issues, navigate voting laws and turn out at the polls.

The goal is to assure that students fully participate in democracy as voters, educators, and citizens while at school and throughout their lives. CEEP has a comprehensive roadmap called ‘Seven Key Ways’ which outlines a systematic approach to building campus and student involvement.”

This is to help students get to know more about voting and the candidates they are voting for. MSU has been chosen for the first time to host CEEP this fall and it will be coordinated by a CEEP Fellow. A CEEP Fellow is usually a student whose job is to help create an environment that supports student voting.

“This is the first time we have a fellow on campus and it’s through a national organization. They have just now expanded to Minnesota. There are two up in the cities at the U of M and one down here.” said Andrew Trenne, CEEP fellow here at MSU.

“Every state usually have one at each major schools and we are lucky enough to have one here which is me and through me we have a group of students working together to accomplish some of these goals, helping to educate our fellow students, helping register our fellow students. It shows through studies that the more college students that are involved in the process, the more Politian’s will listen to what our issues are and more educated our issues are so they can fight for us on their levels of involvement whether being the state or federal government.” 

There will be events to educate students on how to register to vote, how to know more about their candidates, why they should vote to name a few. There is one station in the Preska Residential Hall and Myers Fieldhouse which open from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm on voting days. 

“We are just looking to make an impact this year through CEEP and students, just to make everyone change their opinion on voting and to make educated about the process and can. Overall, we are just trying to make students aware of their option of voting,” said Andrew Trenne

Trenne stated that most people do not care about voting but he believes that spending only two minutes can impact what will happen in the next two years and also students’ voices need to be heard. 

For more information contact Karen Anderson at, karen.anderson@mnsu.edu and Andrew Trenne at, andrew.trenne@mnsu.edu.

Feature photo courtesy of campuselect.org.