It’s been a tough year for college campuses. Consider this week’s unresolved U.S. presidential election to be the sour cherry on top.
College presidents on Wednesday greeted the historic moment of confusion and anticipation by gauging students’ needs and wrestling with their own roles. What was their responsibility to their community?
This year presidents have juggled the health risks of operating in a pandemic, financial losses, and responding to calls for racial equity. Now it is unclear how long it will be before there is a president-elect. By Wednesday evening, Joseph R. Biden Jr., the former vice president and Democratic nominee, appeared close to securing the 270 electoral votes necessary to claim the office. But President Trump, who still has a narrow path to victory, has baselessly alleged voter fraud and vowed to challenge results that are unfavorable to his candidacy. An ugly and unprecedented few weeks or months are not impossible.
College presidents say they expect to be called upon for calm and stability — and some may speak out as civic leaders.
Denise M. Trauth, president of Texas State University, said she hoped the current moment “won’t turn into a crisis.”
“But it is something we are deeply concerned about — how the uncertainty of not knowing who won the presidential election is going to impact our university community,” she said.
Texas State is nestled in San Marcos, between San Antonio and Austin. Trauth called it the “50-50 university” — with students who are equally from urban and rural areas, and are roughly split in their political views.
Some students will take the election’s results personally, no matter who wins, she said. “It goes to their values. Are my values going to be upheld, or are they not going to be upheld?” But there are also ramifications for the institution. Administrators, she said, will wonder how the results will affect the amount of the maximum Pell Grant, for instance.
College leaders encouraged students to vote, and she wrote to the campus about the need for patience as votes are counted. Still, Trauth said, there is a limit to what she would say now that the ballots have been cast — even in an uncertain moment.
“As a public university,” she said, “we are nonpartisan.”
‘It’s Early’
Other college leaders said it’s not a clear-cut issue. Universities “don’t do political advocacy,” but if any presidential administration attempted to undermine the nation’s democracy after the votes had been cast, Christina H. Paxson, president of Brown University, said it would be appropriate to speak out, and she urged other campus leaders to do the same. “We need democracy to have great universities,” she said.
Judy K. Sakaki, president of Sonoma State University, in California, said she wouldn’t be afraid to speak out, trusting her gut to know when the correct time might be. “It’s early right now,” she said. “The process is still unfolding.”
Christopher P. Gibson, president of Siena College, in New York, and a former Republican congressman, said he expected officials from “every corner and from every political party” to respect the process. “You can expect I will lead by example on that,” he said.
Such a stance could be a departure for many presidents, who have long been loath to widely and publicly criticize Trump, though some have pushed back against his administration’s policies on immigration and research.
Harold L. Martin Sr., chancellor of North Carolina A&T State University, criticized any efforts to suppress vote counting, but he said he would probably not weigh in beyond general comments on inaccurate statements by Trump.
Felix V. Matos Rodríguez, chancellor of the City University of New York system, said he would leave questions about the election to others.
“We’re not in the business of making political commentary,” he said, though he conceded that such a question was among “the most complicated decisions that higher-ed leaders have” to make.
“Everybody is biting their nails” on campus, he said. During one meeting on Wednesday, he deputized an administrator to fill in colleagues on any election developments.
Not a ‘Friend’
The election follows months of scenario-planning at the University of Maryland at College Park, its president, Darryll J. Pines, said. The planning considered a Biden win, a Trump win, or drawn-out uncertainty, and covered counseling, talking points for faculty members, and the possibility of campus protests. Knowing the final vote will have practical consequences, for students and presidents alike.
If Biden wins, Paxson, the newly elected chair of the Association of American Universities’ board, said campus leaders would quickly advocate for a rollback of the recent executive order discouraging institutions from holding diversity training. Other federal-policy priorities include research funding and support for international students.
“Trump has not been a friend to higher education,” said Paxson. “I think that’s pretty clear.”
Other campus leaders eyed possible stimulus packages, to states and to colleges themselves, under a Biden presidency.
The uncertainty — and possible disappointment among some when the election results are final — reanimated administrators’ longstanding concerns about students’ mental health and faculty burnout in a semester that offers few of the community-building mainstays of the residential-college experience.
“It’s not an isolated situation with just the election going on, or just Covid, or just the racial reckoning,” said Sonoma State’s Sakaki. “It’s all of this together that is creating not just unprecedented but hugely challenging times for leaders and for students.”
Should anxieties worsen students’ mental health or colleges find they cannot meet student needs, retention or even new enrollment could be hurt, said Katie Conboy, president of Saint Mary’s College, in Indiana. Professors, too, could feel the impact of a drawn-out election that drained energy, said Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University.
North Carolina A&T’s Martin on Wednesday morning posted on Twitter a message of thanks, hoping to keep students positive. “As some election results are received and we wait for others,” he wrote, “I want to thank all #NCAT students who participated in the process by registering, galvanizing, and educating voters, working polls, and voting. Continue your civic engagement. Continue fighting for your convictions.”
With the post, he told The Chronicle, he hoped to allay any students’ disillusionment with the outcome of the election still not known. Students at the nation’s largest historically Black university held a mass march to the polls on Saturday.
“I didn’t want to see that level of deflating of our students’ excitement and enthusiasm,” Martin said.
