The first election Vivek Babu was eligible to vote in happened at one of our country’s most momentous moments: In 2020, during a global pandemic and climate crisis, in the wake of racial uprisings, with a palpable and seemingly intractable divide among Americans. A freshman at Drexel University at the time, Babu felt the historic weight of his first vote — as well as his own personal history with voting.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, some of Babu’s favorite moments happened in the polling booth with his mom, watching her cast a ballot as a naturalized citizen, originally from India. “My parents really instilled in me the importance of voting and being engaged within democracy,” says Babu. “As immigrants, the democracy my parents signed up for is one in which participatory measures are important. Our voices have to be heard.”
Now a senior at Drexel, Babu is president of the school’s Undergraduate Student Government Association (USGA), a position to which he was elected after two years spent running the USGA’s Civic Engagement Committee. Under his leadership, USGA has educated Drexel students about the importance of voting, helped them decide where and how to vote, explained the issues and candidates, and encouraged them to cast a ballot. That work — in partnership with other student and university-wide organizations — led Drexel to achieve a “Most Engaged Campus” honor in 2022 from Civic Nation, a national nonprofit that works for student engagement and equity, and for Babu to be named to the organization’s Student Voting Honor Roll, for voter engagement impact.
“We always dream of students who will dedicate themselves to a cause. Every once in a while a student like Vivek comes around who intentionally makes a mission and goes hard with these things.” — Cara Scharf
This year, thanks to advocacy from Babu and USGA over the last several years, Drexel for the first time will cancel all classes for the general election on November 5 to allow students time and opportunity to vote and participate in civic engagement. (That goes further than a compromise measure in 2022 and 2023, when Drexel canceled classes after 2pm on Election Day.)
“For years, faculty and administrators would push back and say students don’t care, that they can vote if they want when they are not in class,” Babu says. But between classes, clubs and jobs, it was often difficult for students to find time to cast a ballot, according to a mini-poll the USGA conducted. “The main reason why students said they don’t vote is not that they don’t care, but that they don’t have the time,” says Babu. “This sends the message that even out of class, Drexel wants its students to be engaged.”
Voter engagement
Drexel President John Fry has long touted a vision of Drexel as the most civically-engaged university in the United States. As part of that, every freshman is required to take CVIC 101 at the Lindy Center for Civic Engagement, which introduces them to the skills needed to be “active participants in a pluralistic, democratic society.” That can mean turning passions into advocacy, communicating with people who have differing views, leading campus or off-campus organizations. “We help students develop a toolkit of how to make change on a global level, systemic level, individual level,” says Cara Scharf, associate director of the Lindy Center.
Babu is the kind of civically active student Fry envisions. As president of the USGA, one of Babu’s duties is speaking for his fellow students at university board meetings, reporting on their concerns and presenting ideas and projects for engaging with the university community on and off campus. Rosalind Remer, Drexel’s Senior Vice Provost for Collections and Exhibitions, says Babu’s presentations are among the highlights of board meetings.
“He’s not shy, he gets out there and is perfectly comfortable talking to a room of city leaders and board directors,” says Remer, who is also Executive Director of Drexel’s Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships. “It cheers one up to see these citizens of tomorrow working on issues that matter to their communities.”
The USGA is part of Drexel Votes, a campus-wide initiative to encourage voting and engagement among, particularly, undergraduates. Through Lindy, Drexel Votes partners with a national organization, Civic Influencers, to connect it with students — including Babu — who are hired to work part-time on getting out the vote.
“The main reason why students said they don’t vote is not that they don’t care, but that they don’t have the time. This sends the message that even out of class, Drexel wants its students to be engaged.” — Vivek Babu
In his Election Day advocacy, Babu cites a study that has found that voting is a habit, best adopted at a young age. In an op-ed in Drexel’s student paper, The Triangle, he mentions a university-wide student poll at Rutgers University in which 95 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote if they had the day off from classes. Students at Temple and Penn have also called for an Election Day holiday, and Drexel law students have separately pushed their school to give time off for voting.
But it’s not just voting that Babu has preached to his Drexel community; it’s engagement. That’s why in their 16-page, heavily-footnoted proposal to Drexel administrators for a voting day holiday, Babu and a fellow USGA member suggested what they called “Octavius Catto’s Day of Civil Service,” to “celebrate and encourage service and civic engagement.”
“Voter engagement encompasses a lot more than turnout,” Babu says. “We want to make sure students are making educated, informed decisions and not just voting down partisan lines, or going on a whim. We want to make sure they stay engaged in their communities.”
In the last election, for example, the USGA designed voter toolkits with links to election coverage on local news sites, including information about ballot measures, as well as details about where to vote if they are doing it on campus, or how to get an absentee ballot if they are voting by mail. They included information for students who lived out of the area — and even for those who come from other countries, urging them to participate in their own country’s elections or locally in ways that are outside of voting. They set up tables on campus for two straight weeks to register students and educate them about reasons to vote and held an engagement fair presenting service opportunities. They utilized social media, particularly @Drexelvotes on Instagram, to spread messages about voting.
And they partnered with fraternities and sororities, as well as sports teams — core to Drexel student life — to raise awareness and demonstrate active citizenship. Last year, for example, Drexel’s male and female crew teams both canceled practice on November 7, and instead encouraged their athletes to vote and then to pick up litter in a nearby neighborhood, while also passing out flyers with voting information. Babu says more than 75 people showed up, collecting about 15 bags of trash.
“I appreciate that Vivek has such a sense of inclusivity,” says Scharf. “We have a large international student body, from different places, and a lot of different ways they might be politically engaged. We’re seeing a lot of disillusionment with politicians and voting — he’s really looking at, what are all the different ways we can affect change?”
A “happy warrior”
Babu is the antithesis of what too many people still assume of young Americans — that they are too apathetic, too uninformed, too focused on the wrong things to bother with voting or making themselves heard in other productive ways. He understands why people think that; he has witnessed his peers’ disdain for politics and the political process, and the damaging effects of misinformation and social media. But he has proven that it is possible — and even necessary — to change people’s minds about what they are able to accomplish.
“Vivek is like so many of the student government leaders I’ve gotten to know over the years,” Remer says. “He’s very optimistic, a happy warrior. He represents the student body in more ways than one — as an elected official, and in the way they are.”
By the time the 2024 presidential general election comes around, Babu will have graduated and no longer run the USGA; he will — if all goes well — be a medical student at Drexel, aiming for a career in global public health. (Though, to be clear, it would be no surprise if he eventually parlayed that into a career in politics.) For now, he’s focused on educating and engaging Drexel students ahead of the Pennsylvania primary on April 23, even more hyper-locally on student elections at Drexel, as a small-scale version of democracy in action — and on ensuring that his vision passes on to his successors on the USGA. “This is my baby. I have nurtured this project and want to see the fruits of this continue,” he says.
“We always dream of students who will dedicate themselves to a cause,” Scharf says. “At universities, students are focused on studying, getting a job, clubs, their social life — there’s not a lot of space for other things. Every once in a while a student like Vivek comes around who intentionally makes a mission and goes hard with these things.”
