By Maci Shingleton
A bored student on his couch watching weather reports Sunday night created a hashtag on Twitter that Trevecca students quickly started tweeting and retweeting.
#cancelclasstrevecca was a plea for the university to cancel classes on Monday because of weather and so many students got behind the campaign that @trevecca trended on Twitter in Nashville, meaning it was the most talked about subject on Twitter in the Nashville area.
“I just really didn’t want to go to class and thought it would be fun to see if it would actually take off. I’ve seen it happen before. I had time on my hands and decided to try,” said Nick Huddleston, a senior commercial music major who created the hashtag. “I sent it to a lot of people and just wanted to see how easy it was to get something trending on Twitter.”
Huddleston and his friends got their wish when Trevecca Provost Steve Pusey made the official call to cancel all classes Monday morning, which most students found out on Twitter.
After announcing the snow day, Matt Toy, director of marketing and communications, tweeted from @trevecca ,“Great job to all the students on the #cancelclasstrevecca social campaign. Enjoy your day and stay off the roads.”
Toy was amused by the creativity of the students, but said the decision to call off classes Monday was not related to the twitter campaign.
“Students got out of class solely because of the weather,” he said. “I thought the hashtag was an incredibly creative way to mobilize students together but it really had no bearing on the cancellation of school.”
Many students tweeted that they would skip classes if they weren’t cancelled and commuter students tweeted about their concerns about driving to and from classes.
“I was so excited when class was cancelled,” said Hank Mitchell, a commuter student. “ Last night I was tweeting at Trevecca and using the hashtag and retweeting people. The roads were really bad, but really I just wanted a day off.”
Toy said his department does monitor social media from students, especially when they work together.
“I don’t think a hashtag is that effective in the cancellation of school,” he said. “I think those making decisions are pretty aware of the fact that students and faculty are coming from a distance to get to campus.”
Students said they were glad their voices were heard and ultimately, glad they got a snow day.
This morning Huddleston used the popular hashtag he created one last time in a simple tweet.
“@nchudd: WE DID IT #cancelclasstrevecca”
[…] hashtag, which was used in March when Trevecca did end up canceling classes for weather, was used more 40 times in three hours so far today, making it obvious that students […]
[…] hashtag, which was used in March when Trevecca did end up canceling classes for weather, was used more 40 times in three hours so far today, making it obvious that students […]