On election night, Harvard Gazette staff writers and photographers fanned out across the university to capture Harvard students, faculty and staff as they awaited election results. They were at the law school and business school, and were present when David Axelrod, senior adviser to Obama, called into the Harvard Kennedy School’s John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. See full coverage on the Harvard Gazette site “Election 2012 at Harvard.” Below is a report on election night at Harvard Law School by Harvard staff writer Colleen Walsh.
Harvard Law School’s new lounge and pub in the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing Building, was the gathering place for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who stood side by side to follow the results on TV during a party organized by the School’s Dean of Students Office.
“We are really here to celebrate the electoral process and democracy. … The goal was to have students from all ranges of the political spectrum,” said Dean of Students Ellen Cosgrove.
Student Karl Sigwarth, sporting a T-shirt from the HLS Republicans, praised the Law School as a place where competing viewpoints are embraced. “You are able to have an exchange of ideas that, while it’s animated sometimes, at the end of the day it’s still very respectful and you still realize that you are learning from each other, and that’s great.”
Aside from the presidential election, there was strong interest in the Senate race between Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, and incumbent Scott Brown. A large cheer erupted when Warren was declared the winner.
“A lot of people that come to Harvard have a passion for public service and I think that is true of Elizabeth Warren,” said second-year HLS student George Fleming.
Asked how long the party would last, Cosgrove responded with a laugh. “I did this job in 2000 and I said ‘the party will go until the winner is announced’ and I learned my lesson.” This year she said she sent out an email stating the festivities would last until a winner is declared, or “at whatever reasonable time we determine is appropriate.”
