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  • 2016-11-10 (xsd:date)
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  • Yale Cancels Midterms After Students Were Upset by Trump's Win (en)
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  • After the 8 November 2016 U.S. general election, a number of web sites reported that Yale University coddled students by canceling exams or classes, apparently because of their distress over the election of Donald Trump: The claim was aggregated by Fox News, but as the material quoted here noted, the anecdote appeared to come from one single source on Twitter: A second tweet claimed a separate midterm had been significantly modified to accommodate student distress: Most accounts of the purported handwringing at Yale could be traced back to Victor's 9 November 2016 tweet, and as mentioned in the piece, the professor's name was not included in any accounts (making them initially impossible to locate, and the claim thus difficult to verify). @YaleDailyNews tweeted a front page indicating that the campus was despondent after Trump's win, but an accompanying headline indicated that students were denied dean's excuses [from academic obligations] related to the election: The article reported: The same article provided a name for the economics professor (Steven Berry), and added further detail: As this far more detailed account noted, one examination was converted to a take-home version, and a second exam was deemed optional — both normal amendments to any syllabus. On 10 November 2016, Jon Victor tweeted that other requests for extensions by students had been denied: A report from a Yale-based crowdsourced publication (The Tab) critical of the rumors noted that students were not relieved from academic obligations: Official schedules for Yale academics suggested that midterms were mostly held in late October 2016, not early November 2016. As is often the case with claims of collegiate fragility, the underlying details appeared to diverge dramatically from a simple claim of coddled students unable to cope with real-life events, with little background information painting a complete picture. We have both contacted Yale's public relations department and Steven Berry for clarification, and on 11 November 2016 received a response from an individual party to the disruptions. The source confirmed there was little truth to the rumors about cancellations, describing the concerns as largely pedagogical: Adding that [s]ome faculty made accommodations to 9 November 2016] tests (but most did not), the source continued: Finally, the source stated that in hindsight, the distraction presented by the election in general was suboptimal with respect to exam timing. However, that individual confirmed that student exhaustion from staying up late to follow close election results (not being upset by Trump) was largely the cause of modification to coursework, and that the students affected by the phenomenon include both Trump supporters and opponents. Moreover, faculty expressed that the events were ones considered relevant and supplementary with respect to the courses in question, and professors wished to allow for students to fully process the policy detail and political significance (not emotions) of that notable event. (en)
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