Election Day in the United States: what are you seeing in and around academia?
I dropped my ballot off yesterday.
Today, as Google Calendar and every human being on Earth apparently tell me, is Election Day in America.
I have a post coming up from a futurist’s perspective, offering some thoughts, but this post is for you all. Comment here or elsewhere, so that you can share your thoughts and observations:
What are you seeing today in and around higher education?
From my side, a few things.
First, my Georgetown seminar on technology normally takes place Tuesday nights. The students persuaded me and each other to reschedule tonight’s session for later in the week. They were concerned about possible chaos — quite reasonably, since many of them live in the Washington, DC area, which is a fine candidate for unrest and madness of all kinds. In fact, we’re not the only ones battening down the hatches.
Second, the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed each have front page readings about academia and this election, if you’re looking for last-minute voting fodder or just general information and reflection.
Third, from my neighborhood: Manassas, Virginia is pretty quiet so far. There haven’t been many indications of the national election here since the Democratic primary. There are very few yard signs for either presidential candidate and we haven’t gotten a mailer for a long time. In our Congressional race, Republican Rob Wittman has been shipping us fliers perfectly designed to get us to support his opponent, Qasim Rashid.
I’ve already voted (see photograph above) but may drive around today to see how things go — and never ever leave the car.
Fourth… ah, back to the next blog post.
Now, over to you. What are you seeing, dear academics and academically-adjacent folks?
