Tips for Preparing for Morning After Election Day (opinion)

Colleges and universities are working hard to help students register, learn about candidates and issues, and vote. But are they preparing for what happens after Election Day?

Students will return to classes and activities with different reactions to the results. Some may be celebrating. Others may be disappointed, anxious, angry or fearful. Faculty and staff will need to decide whether and how to acknowledge the election while institutional leaders will face questions about student gatherings, protests, community norms, safety and freedom of expression.  

In 2024, the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ Institute for Democracy and Higher Education published “The Morning After: Managing the Day(s) and Week(s) After Election Day.” Although written for the 2024 presidential election, most of its guidance remains relevant.

One principle underlies these recommendations: Talking politics is not inherently partisan. Helping students examine public issues, evaluate evidence, discuss disagreements and understand election outcomes is part of higher education’s educational mission. Academic judgment, not political pressure, should determine what gets taught and discussed. Faculty and staff who research, teach and discuss public controversies without advocating for a candidate or party should have unequivocal institutional support.

Rather than publish a new edition of “The Morning After,” I’ve created a checklist of things campuses and educators can do now to prepare for the days and weeks after Election Day.

What different groups across campuses—institutional leaders, student affairs professionals, faculty and student organizations—can plan together now:

• Identify welcoming campus spaces where students can gather, reflect and connect. Consider informal gathering spaces as well as structured discussions. Sometimes students just want to be heard.

• Host multidisciplinary forums in which faculty discuss election implications from different perspectives. Make these sessions interactive rather than lecture-based. Encourage departmental support, but let students take the lead.
• Offer different formats for gatherings. Design both intergroup and intragroup options, e.g., for affinity groups organized around identity, political affiliation or perspectives on current issues. If tensions are high, start with informal affinity-group gatherings before transitioning to structured intergroup engagement.
• Affirm campus norms. Reinforce values such as truth, inquiry, inclusion, fairness, compassion, goodwill, dignity and shared responsibility. Encourage disagreement and dissent while clarifying that harassment and intimidation are unacceptable.

• Protect safety and expressive freedoms. Review procedures for responding to threats, harassment and intimidation while safeguarding peaceful protest, dissent and controversial expression. Make sure students and employees know where to seek help.
• Support students who are upset or fearful. Not all distress requires mental health support. Some students may have understandable concerns about policies affecting their rights, families and communities. Acknowledge these concerns, communicate where students can find practical assistance and draw on counseling services when appropriate.
• Prepare for student advocacy and protest. Anticipate that some students will want to organize, advocate or protest. Engage students in discussions about institutional responses and offer opportunities to learn about the history and practices of successful social movements.

• Make information easy to find and share. Create a website with descriptions, dates, times and locations of postelection activities and available resources. Create a slide or handout with a QR code linking to that website that faculty and staff can share with students.

How faculty and staff members can prepare now for classes and convenings after Election Day:

• Acknowledge the election without losing sight of your educational goals. Some students will want to talk about what happened, while others may prefer to avoid the subject. Our research indicates that educators who treat postelection classes or interactions as if nothing happened may come across as oblivious or uncaring. Decide before Election Day how much time you will dedicate to the outcomes or student reactions.
• Share information about campus activities and resources. Bring a slide or handout with information about opportunities for discussion, expression and support. Even if you do not devote class time to the election, acknowledge what happened and let students know where they can go to talk or seek assistance.
• Avoid treating classes or meetings like therapy sessions. Listening and reflecting with empathy are reasonable responses, but keep discussion focused on learning.
• What makes your discipline relevant to society? Teach it. Find opportunities to examine public issues relevant to your field, evaluate evidence and help students reason together.
• Establish group agreements and practice using them before Election Day. Share responsibility with students for achieving the learning goals. Say, “I am going to rely on all of you to share the job of making this class or discussion work for everyone.” Agree on ways to express unpopular views, challenge ideas without attacking people and respond constructively when tensions rise. Make clear that students can disagree vigorously without belittling or dehumanizing others.
• Prepare to facilitate difficult conversations. Encourage candor and anticipate conflict. Model listening, pausing, asking curious questions and disagreeing without personalizing. When a student says something inflammatory, ask, “Can you think of another way to express that?” Notice and appreciate student efforts to help discussions succeed. The goal is not to avoid or police conflict but to help students take responsibility for expressing themselves and engaging constructively with others.
• Decide in advance whether and how you will disclose your personal views. Educators need not pretend they have no opinions, but they should consider how sharing those views may affect classroom or group dynamics. Assure students that their perspectives will receive a fair hearing and that their grades will not depend on agreeing with the instructor.
• Challenge disinformation. Disinformation can exploit fears, reinforce extremism and division, and undermine free and fair elections. Insist on facts. Use disciplinary standards and evidence, not personal preferences, to check claims and counter disinformation. Push students to examine evidence, question unsupported assertions and take responsibility for fact-checking. Do so in ways that are collaborative rather than confrontational.
• Prepare for uncertain outcomes. Election results may still be incomplete or contested after the votes are in. Remind students of this possibility and help them distinguish between verified information, uncertainty and speculation.

Above all, educate, don’t regulate. Help students craft arguments, examine multiple perspectives, find common ground and create fresh solutions. The days and weeks after Election Day are ideal opportunities to foster learning, discussion and community.

Finally, for more detailed recommendations, examples and resources for managing the days and weeks after Election Day, see our 2024 report.