FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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American University to cancel Election Day classes

American University to cancel Election Day classes

WASHINGTON - American University will cancel classes and close university offices on Election Day to give students and employees time to vote, the school's president announced Monday.

The announcement comes after students pushed to have Election Day declared an institutional holiday. The campus typically closes every four years for Inauguration Day. Now, it will do the same for general presidential elections.

"Civic engagement and pursuit of American democratic ideals is part of AU's DNA," Sylvia Burwell, AU's president, said in an email. The message was sent to a community that includes about 14,000 students, many of whom are taking their classes online and living off campus because of the pandemic.

"This is a big election," Tamir Harper, an AU junior, said in September when he called on the university to cancel classes on Nov. 3. Harper and other young people cited the future of health care, the threats posed by climate change and the student-debt crisis as reasons this election will be so consequential.

The coronavirus pandemic adds another layer of urgency, students said. States are expanding access to mail-in voting as a safer alternative to in-person voting, but the U.S. Postal Service has experienced delivery delays since June.

Many students, now living closer to home, asked to have Election Day off so they could vote in person. Others wanted free time to work at polls amid a national shortage of volunteers.

Similar movements to cancel Election Day classes have taken hold at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Nearly 200 Ohio University students are urging the school to cancel classes and have signed a petition that says the campus has an "obligation to promote the fulfillment of our civic duties."

Burwell, who served as a top Obama administration official before she was hired to lead AU, said students "fostered a broad and constructive dialogue" about the value of canceling classes.

"This Election Day will certainly be different given the impacts of covid-19, and Americans everywhere will participate in this year's election in a variety of ways and times," Burwell said in the email. "No matter your activity, exercising the right to vote is something we cherish, and we are proud to stand with our community."

 

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