Last Tuesday night, Brown's campus exploded in jubilant, spontaneous celebration. Students poured onto the Main Green and lit up the sky with fireworks, cheering Barack Obama's victory over John McCain. The impromptu festivities ultimately descended on the State House in downtown Providence.
Yet College Hill was not the only university community rejoicing last week. As Brown students chanted, "Yes, we can!" on the steps of Faunce House, similar spur-of-the moment parties were taking place at its peer institutions. Across the Ivy League, hordes of students - and in some cases, faculty - stormed the streets of their own neighborhoods, relishing in the historic win by the 47-year-old senator from Illinois.
At Columbia, students savored the selection of one of their own as the nation's leader. The first Columbia College graduate to be elected president, Obama attended the New York City school in the early 1980s after transferring in his junior year from Occidental College. Obama graduated with a B.A. in 1983; he studied political science with a specialization in international relations.
On Tuesday night, Columbia students rushed the streets, breaking out in song, dance and all-around unadulterated enthusiasm. The celebrating crowds became so massive that police unexpectedly decided to shut down Broadway to accommodate the festivities, the Columbia Spectator reported.
Caitlin Burke, a freshman at Columbia, was in her dorm room when the news media projected Obama would win. She said she did not know he had won until people started screaming on the street below. "Within moments, hundreds of students had swarmed Broadway. Everyone was rejoicing and some were even crying," as they marched toward Harlem, she said. "Even the security guards were ecstatic."
Derek Nelson, another first-year at Columbia and a member of the College Democrats, was "squeezed" into a 15-passenger van on the New Jersey Turnpike when he first heard of Obama's achievement. The Democrats had been campaigning in Virginia that day and were returning to New York when the announcement was made. They were so enthused that the van "nearly careened off the road," Nelson said. When the group arrived on Columbia's campus, the festivities were already well underway, and the Democrats "wept along with the rest of the mob that had flooded Morningside and Harlem."
While Obama's alma mater and the Ivy League in general are regularly categorized as liberal-leaning institutions, Obama's student support extended far beyond a few schools in the Northeast.
Nationally, 66 percent of college-aged voters cast their ballots for Obama, the New York Times reported last week, while 31 percent supported McCain. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement reported last week that 3.4 million more people ages 18-29 voted this year than in the last presidential election in 2004.
Among supporters in that age group were students from the University of Pennsylvania, who formed their own impulsive march toward Philadelphia's City Hall. They carried signs bearing the president-elect's name and waved American flags, screaming with such elation that it was difficult for students not to notice the celebration. Students from nearby Drexel University joined the demonstration, and "traffic was at an absolute standstill," according to Penn freshman Darina Shtrakhman, as Philadelphia residents got out of their cars to dance in the streets with the marchers. "It felt so cool to be part of such a big movement!"
At Cornell, in the decidedly less urban area of Ithaca, N.Y., students likewise set off firecrackers and ran into the streets. Conga drumming broke out on the campus's Commons, and students break-danced and sang in delight, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.
Kevin Giroux, a freshman, described the night as "wild" and "exciting." As he and his friends gathered around a television to watch Obama's acceptance speech, they heard crowds of people running outside. Brown isn't the only place where people celebrate political victories with nudity: Giroux said some of the students outside were streaking amid the excitement.
Even in the rural neighborhood of Hanover, N.H. - in a swing state whose loyalties remained questionable for much of the campaign - Dartmouth students joined in the post-election excitement. Obama, who lost New Hampshire during the primary season to Hillary Clinton, ended up securing the state's electoral votes with 54 percent of the popular vote.
Hundreds of Dartmouth students extemporaneously congregated outside of the house of President James Wright. They chanted "Speech, speech!" until Wright emerged from the house, where he told the students, "This is your century."
