Yes, College Students Will Wake Up Early -- To Vote!

Anyone who’s ever been a college student knows that “morning person” is not part of the vocabulary of a typical student. Given their druthers, most college students won’t get out of bed before 7:00 a.m. for anything — including their early morning classes. Heck, when I taught at Indiana University, I had students miss my 1:30 pm class because there was a power outage on campus that knocked out their alarm clocks.
But that all changed on November 4, 2008. Students all over the United States got their butts out of bed when it was still dark and stood in line for hours to vote. Articles about eager students shedding sleep to cast a ballots popped up all over the country.
Here’s some footage of almost 1,000 Penn State students up before the sun to cast their votes:

So cool! I can’t even tell you how happy I am to see students with this much enthusiasm for an election. I don’t miss being a professor, but on days like today, I’m sorry that I’m not on a college campus, having conversations with my students about their experiences.
And hopefully, there wasn’t a power outage at Indiana University yesterday!