Students who hoped to abstain from classes or work in order to vote in person and engage in other civic activities Tuesday were permitted to do so after clearing the absence with their professor or supervisor.
BU spokesperson Colin Riley said the University follows the same policy on voting as it does on other activities that would require students to miss class.
“We’re all adults and we need to make adult decisions,” Riley said. “If there are important things in life, whether they’re family matters, civic matters such as the election, communicate that with the people who are expecting you if you anticipate a time issue.”
Dean Stan Sclaroff of the College of Arts and Sciences sent a note Oct. 20 to faculty encouraging them to accommodate student voters this year by allowing asynchronous attendance and avoiding holding exams on Election Day.
President Robert Brown had also sent a letter Oct. 14 to on-campus supervisors asking them to offer workers “adequate” time off, without dipping into vacation time, if they needed to vote in person. Staff members were encouraged to share their Election Day plans with their supervisor beforehand.
Student-athletes across all sports teams also saw zero required activities on Tuesday, Brittany Kane, senior associate director of Athletics, wrote in an email.
College of Communication Dean Mariette DiChristina said civic participation is important and encouraged within the BU community.
“It’s really important that we all engage in the society that we want to see,” DiChristina said, “and the changes we want to see through our selections of candidates.”
The mental and emotional challenges that have arisen from the pandemic and recent waves of civil unrest are all the more reason for faculty to be more understanding of students’ needs, DiChristina said.
“While holidays are established centrally by the BU administration,” DiChristina said, “we’ve suggested to faculty that they be as flexible as they can.”
A student petition asking BU to make Election Day a University holiday for every federal election year starting in 2022 has been circulating since early October, but the administration has not taken official action on the request.
COM, like CAS, had also recommended faculty be flexible with giving students the day off to head to the polls. The ability to offer that opportunity — by posting recorded lectures for later viewing — demonstrates the way BU’s Learn from Anywhere modality “puts students first,” DiChristina added.
Christopher Moore, dean of the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, wrote in an email that a request from an anti-racist focus group within Sargent prompted the college to record all Tuesday classes and allow students who missed class to request a recording.
“The faculty involved in teaching these classes felt that it was important that students do not feel there are any barriers to voting,” Moore wrote.
Similarly, Dean Natalie McKnight of the College of General Studies wrote in an email she had asked CGS faculty to make attendance policies flexible for Election Day to accomodate for long lines at polling places.
The College of Fine Arts, meanwhile, taught classes as normal Tuesday. However, Dean Harvey Young wrote in an email all required non-curricular activities, such as rehearsals, across CFA’s schools and BU Bands were canceled.
As for the School of Law, students saw all classes canceled on Election Day, Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig wrote in an email.
“Lawyers have a long history of guarding and honoring the democratic process,” Onwuachi-Willing wrote, “and the faculty wanted to give law students, themselves, and other members in our community the opportunity to do just that on Election Day.”
Many of the law school’s students and faculty, Onwuachi-Willig added, volunteered Tuesday as election workers or poll watchers.
Professor Kim McCall, chair of the Biology Department, said though she is not teaching any classes this semester, she had canceled all meetings with students working in her lab on Election Day to better enable them to vote or volunteer, as well as to “just deal with” the circumstances of the day.
Election Day had been on the minds of many faculty in the department since summer. In early August, professor Karen Warkentin and assistant professor Sarah Davies sent a petition to Brown, Provost Jean Morrison and Sclaroff asking that they make Election Day a “non-instructional” day for students.
The petition, signed by 12 members of the Biology Department, aimed to “send a clear message to our students that [faculty] value democracy.” The civic duty of voting should not be blocked by fears of missing class due to long lines, the petition stated.
Warkentin wrote in the petition student volunteers at polling stations would be essential in this election, especially in making sure older adults who are at high risk for COVID-19 do not have to let health concerns “outweigh their desire to contribute to democracy.”
“We believe that this would be a timely move that would place Boston University on the right side of history,” Warkentin wrote in the petition.
Eunice Lamothe, a junior in CAS, said she was “disappointed” BU did not make Election Day a University holiday, especially because this year’s political climate amplified the importance of participating in a representative democracy, she said.
“It’s a lot to expect that a student will have to take those steps on their own to go vote,” Lamothe said, “especially when voting should be part of our routine.”
COM senior Daniela Tellechea said she voted by mail this election — like many BU students historically do, according to Riley.
After her California absentee ballot was lost in the mail, Tellechea said she cast her ballot using a Remote Accessible Vote-By-Mail system, which allows voters to select a compatible technology that works best for them — a fax machine in Tellechea’s case.
Tellechea said she thinks Election Day should be a national holiday. In-person voters in this election, she said, carried a “safety net” of votes to compensate for many across the country who also experienced vote-by-mail complications.
“I don’t know what’s going on with the vote by mail right now,” Tellechea said, “which is really scary.”
