Some college professors across the country are making special efforts to get students — who are expected to vote in record numbers this election year — to the polls Nov. 2.

Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor, said he added an election slant to his course this semester.

“I do that in conjunction with the elections every time,” he said. “In the spring, the focus was on the primaries, and now in the fall, it’s on the presidential election. It’s routine for the class.”

Franklin mentioned his colleague Ken Mayer is teaching a course centered on debates, while colleague Ken Goldstein is helping run the Wisconsin Advertising Project and News Lab, two programs that employ about 100 students to monitor television ads and news coverage to examine content and positive and negative political references.

The University of Michigan political science department is offering two election-specific courses this year.

“We are offering a special course following the election [topic by topic],” John Campbell, a political science professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, said. The course, which Campbell said is “not introductory poli-sci,” has roughly 250 students and meets twice a week.

“Another course with similar issues in a more poli-sci way will be offered after the elections,” Campbell said. “It got to be a little bit of a discussion in the department.” Campbell added there has been a surge in requests for campaign internships and, while the department urges students to be politically active, it cannot award academic credit simply for an internship. Instead, students receive credit for academic studies based on their internships.

Andrew Ruis, a UW teaching assistant for a history of science class, awarded a bonus point to students who wrote their polling place on a quiz.

“All four TAs for ILS 201 did something similar,” Ruis said, adding the group sent e-mail links to students with voter registration and polling information.

“We think it’s important,” Ruis said. “And we teach a lot of freshmen. If you’re 18, it could be your first time voting, and you might not know where to go or how to register. It’s a new experience.”

Ruis said voting is a civic duty, not a right, and he will continue encouraging his students to vote.

“I know there’s a lot of people reaching out to students, but it never hurts to hear it more than once,” Ruis said. “I think voting is important, and I want students to vote. I really don’t care what their politics are.”

But Carol Leff, political science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said she will not award bonus points for going to the polls, or make going to the polls a requirement for her classes.

“I teach comparative political science and I have international students in class, so some of them are not American citizens,” she said. “It’s always valuable to have those students in class. I knew by doing that I would be disqualifying those students. It’s something I haven’t done. I’m not aware of anyone in the department doing that.”

Instead, Leff said she is just educating students about how to register to vote and encouraging them to do so.

“All of us are urging people to register, and I’ve been showing my students how to find out where to register,” Leff said.