National Summer Course and Training Launches with 15+ Partner Organizations to Educate the Next Generation of Students in Voting Rights & Democracy
Bard College invites college and advanced high school students from across the nation to apply for a synchronous online summer course, Student Voting, Civil Rights, and the Practice of Democracy, for three transferable undergraduate credits and an opportunity to receive a certificate on “Voting Rights & Democracy Training.”
Bard College’s Center for Civic Engagement announces the expansion of its youth voting rights work. Responding to this critical moment in American democracy, the online, synchronous course is designed for college and advanced high school students from across the nation and examines voting rights using the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and outlaws age discrimination, as a prism through which to examine the history of disenfranchisement and the fight for voting rights in the United States today.
Student Voting, Civil Rights, and the Practice of Democracy draws from an ongoing collaborative course and new book, Youth Voting Rights: Civil Rights, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and the Fight for American Democracy on College Campuses, that features four youth voting rights legal case studies from Bard College, Tuskegee University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Prairie View A&M University, written and taught by faculty from those institutions. These case studies explore for the first time how college communities promoted, defended, and expanded the right to vote.
The course is designed by historians, political scientists, and an election law professor and practitioner, and will be complemented this summer with trainings and workshops in civic education ranging from proficiency in voting laws to campaign-building and skills training in facilitation and civic dialogue. It is strictly non-partisan. Partner organizations will support the course’s goal to educate and train a new generation of students in voting rights.
The course features national democracy practitioners as invited speakers. Confirmed speakers include U.S. Senator Andy Kim; Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson; and David Goodman of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, a youth democracy organization named in honor of his brother, a 1963 Freedom Summer slain civil rights worker.
The online summer course will run from June 22 through July 28, 2026. Students participating in the transferable three-credit course will be charged $150. This steeply discounted tuition is subsidized through the generous support of partner organizations and donors. Special assistance on a limited basis is available for those students who cannot afford the tuition fee.
Deadline: Applications considered on a rolling basis.
Preferred review by May 1. Deadline May 27th.
Apply: https://cce.bard.edu/get-involved/election/summer-voting-rights-course
Post Date: 04-16-2026
Bard College’s Center for Civic Engagement announces the expansion of its youth voting rights work. Responding to this critical moment in American democracy, the online, synchronous course is designed for college and advanced high school students from across the nation and examines voting rights using the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and outlaws age discrimination, as a prism through which to examine the history of disenfranchisement and the fight for voting rights in the United States today.
Student Voting, Civil Rights, and the Practice of Democracy draws from an ongoing collaborative course and new book, Youth Voting Rights: Civil Rights, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and the Fight for American Democracy on College Campuses, that features four youth voting rights legal case studies from Bard College, Tuskegee University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Prairie View A&M University, written and taught by faculty from those institutions. These case studies explore for the first time how college communities promoted, defended, and expanded the right to vote.
The course is designed by historians, political scientists, and an election law professor and practitioner, and will be complemented this summer with trainings and workshops in civic education ranging from proficiency in voting laws to campaign-building and skills training in facilitation and civic dialogue. It is strictly non-partisan. Partner organizations will support the course’s goal to educate and train a new generation of students in voting rights.
The course features national democracy practitioners as invited speakers. Confirmed speakers include U.S. Senator Andy Kim; Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson; and David Goodman of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, a youth democracy organization named in honor of his brother, a 1963 Freedom Summer slain civil rights worker.
The online summer course will run from June 22 through July 28, 2026. Students participating in the transferable three-credit course will be charged $150. This steeply discounted tuition is subsidized through the generous support of partner organizations and donors. Special assistance on a limited basis is available for those students who cannot afford the tuition fee.
Deadline: Applications considered on a rolling basis.
Preferred review by May 1. Deadline May 27th.
Apply: https://cce.bard.edu/get-involved/election/summer-voting-rights-course
Post Date: 04-16-2026