The message that appeared for anyone who attempted to access Canvas during the outage. Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. Glassboro, NJ. (Michael Bautista / Staff Writer)
Student online services, including Canvas and Grubhub Campus Dining, were disrupted following a major outage of Amazon’s cloud computing service at the beginning of the school week.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud service provider that supports many popular online services, first reported a problem with its core database products between 8:49 p.m. and 11:24 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19. The company continued to respond to connectivity issues throughout the day on Monday, Oct. 20, reporting services operating back to normal by 6 p.m.
The Learning Management System (LMS), Canvas, is utilized around the world by over 11,238 companies and is used by all Ivy League universities for class announcements, assignments, and grades. This online platform was affected by the AWS disruption, causing intermittent issues for students who wanted to access the application during class or wanted to complete homework.
“I can’t do any work pretty much,” said Abigail Fitzmauric, a freshman management major. “So any time I have the motivation to do homework, I just now can’t and I have to wait. There are probably going to be assignments that are overdue. I don’t know what the teachers plan on doing about that.”
In an email sent to all students by the Division of Information Resources & Technology, students were prompted to reach out to their instructors if they had course-specific questions about the Canvas outage.
“Right now, I don’t really care because I don’t have to do any work, but I just know that I’m going to have to do it all later instead, and it’s probably going to be stressful to do,” said Fitzmauric.
The outage also took down the popular food app, Grubhub, and its Campus Dining feature, which students use to purchase meals by linking their RowanCard, affecting many students who wanted to order their breakfast or lunch.
“I was starving in my 9 a.m. [class] when I realized not only could I not do my work on Canvas, but I could not eat either. So I resorted to eating Cheez-Its and Nutella in my room all morning,” said Zoe Kyle, a freshman management major.
While Grubhub’s team was working to get the app fully operational again, Rowan Dining prompted students to go to dining stations for assistance in placing food orders.
“As always, Rowan Dining is committed to ensuring that students are cared for first and foremost,” said Albert Irons, the director of operations for Gourmet Dining. “Grubhub’s team is actively working to restore full functionality. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.”
Due to Grubhub Campus Dining’s server being down, the Marketplace team in the Chamberlain Student Center was stationed outside the entry to greet students and help direct them to in-person ordering options. Students in Holly Pointe Dining Hall experienced minor delays and had the option of only using meal swipes.
“So what we’re doing is, since it’s such a big line at the kiosk station, we are actually bringing the students into the stations and letting them get the food there without paying, so they can still eat,” said Susan Munoz, a food service worker at Campus Dining.
During the outage, Jersey Mike’s in the Chamberlain Student Centers Marketplace offered free mini hoagies customized for each student.
“I think Gourmet Dining is doing a great job,” said Saugat Bhandari, a junior chemical engineering major. “They’re literally offering food. They sent me to let them know what I want, and they just grabbed me the food.”
Bhandari was late to his class because of the delays related to the outage.
“Normally, Grubhub is basically for us to actually order food before class ends, so we can just grab the food and go to our next class,” said Bhandari. “Then, since Grubhub was not there, I had to come and spend more time to grab my food because I had to tell them what I wanted, and they had to make it, so it took another 15 minutes, which made me late for my class, which kind of sucks, so that was a thing that affected my study.”
For Brian Guillermo, a junior chemical engineering major, his plans to purchase his breakfast from Einstein Bros Bagels, a Grubhub Campus Dining option, which students can only pay for through the app, did not go through because of the outage.
“My plan today was to just study work, but because of Grubhub shutting down, I had to walk all the way over to the student center since it wasn’t working anywhere else,” said Guillermo. “I was very upset because I had an 8 a.m. class and didn’t get a break until 12:15 p.m., and all I wanted to do was have lunch, and then I had to walk all the way over here.”
While this isn’t the first time that Campus Dining has experienced an interruption of service, this was the longest outage Munoz has seen in her years of working in the dining commons.
“Sometimes our whole internet will go down to where we won’t get kiosk orders, GrubHub orders, nothing, but they usually get right back on it,” said Munoz. “It’s usually right back on, but this issue with Grubhub and Venmo and all that is ridiculous.”
Canvas and Grubhub became available once again at Rowan by 6 p.m. on Monday evening. The Division of Information Resources & Technology will continue to monitor the situation and provide additional email updates to students if necessary.
For comments/questions about this story, DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email [email protected]