Tales from the Classroom X: Snow Day
Posted on January 28, 2004 @ 4:38 pm
As a result of Monday’s unexpected ice storm, university officials ended up canceling classes for the day. Unfortunately, they waited until 8:30AM to make the decision — after eight o’clock classes were well underway and several more students and university employees (myself included) were already traversing the icy roads to campus. That being said, the following letter to the editor showed up in the campus newspaper today:
While many students grumbled about the late cancellation of classes on Monday, my bitching continued to the following day. How can the school send students home Monday but not on Tuesday? For the second morning in a row I nearly injured myself attempting to navigate my way down my still dangerously icy front steps. Upon arriving at my 9:30 class my hands were so cold I had difficulty writing for the first moments of lecture. After being constantly pelted by slush dripping from the melting trees how could I concentrate on classes?
All of these instances would be acceptable if it were not for the fact that I received very little sleep the night before due to my belief that school would be canceled.
It is time that the University realizes it must honor the precedents which it sets. Students should not, and hopefully will not, accept further discrepancies in school policy.
The consensus among my friends in the department is that the letter must be a joke — due in large part to the laughable complaint about hands so cold that the student couldn’t take notes (it was just barely below freezing) and the indignant admission that the student stayed up too late the night before under the assumption that class would be canceled. Whether intentional or not, though, it’s still unquestionably chuckle-worthy.
Meanwhile, I can’t help but recall a controversial school cancellation from my own time as an undergraduate.
I attended a small college as an undergraduate where well over 75 percent of the student body lived on campus. It was during my junior year, right around this time of year, that a huge snowstorm hit and dumped roughly three feet of snow on the area, knocking out electricity for the entire campus for a couple of days in the process. Needless to say, the school canceled classes as a result. After all, how could you hold classes when there’s no electrical power on campus?
Well, it turns out that all it takes is a little determination and an up-to-date student directory.
I was taking a microeconomics course at the time, and we had a midterm exam scheduled for the morning after the big snow and resulting power outage hit. Naturally, when school officials canceled classes, the general assumption among my classmates and me was that the midterm would be postponed, as well. Not so.
I woke up around seven o’clock the following morning to the ringing of my phone. Picking it up, I was surprised to hear the voice of my microeconomics professor on the line. He said that he just wanted to call and remind me about our midterm at eight.
“Oh, Dr. So-and-So, you must not have heard. Classes are canceled. We don’t have power on campus.”
“I’ve heard. We’re still having the exam. Everyone can walk to class; the snow’s not that deep.”
“Um…well, they announced that classes were canceled yesterday afternoon. If we even wanted to study after six o’clock in the evening, it would had to have been by candlelight. Plus, without power, there’s the whole alarm clock issue –”
“We’re having the midterm,” he interrupted. “You’ve know about it for the past two weeks. Not having power last night is no excuse for not being prepared.”
“But…um, classes are canceled, Dr. So-and-So. They announced it yesterday.”
“I’ll see you at eight.”
Click.
Being the dedicated student that I was/am, I rolled out of bed, got dressed, and trudged through the snow to class (uphill, both ways). About half the class actually made it and, while we weren’t particularly happy about it, we took the midterm. Meanwhile, the professor assigned zeros to the students who didn’t show up. Naturally, when the school reopened a day or two later, the dean informed him that failing half the class wasn’t going to fly and that he would need to offer a make-up exam to anyone who wanted it. The professor continued to resist the order until the dean made it clear that it wasn’t exactly a matter open to debate, at which point the professor finally relented — after explaining to the class that the dean had forced his hand and that he wasn’t particularly happy about it. As a postscript, from what I understand, the professor’s contract wasn’t renewed the following year. I never found out if his infamous snow-day exam had anything to do with it, but sadly enough, it probably wasn’t even in his top five or six offenses since he came to the school. Yeah, he was one of those professors.
Anyway, that’s the story I told my students this morning when a few of them complained that they nearly broke their necks on the way to class on Monday morning before they found out that the university was closed. I think it made them feel a little better.
Posted by Jess | Filed Under Tales from the Classroom |
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Ah, I remember Dr. So-and-so quite clearly. I disliked him greatly as he would put forth quite grand and ludicrous thoughts to the class and challenge someone to contradict him. When they did, he would back up his notion with lots of documented notes and, as the student hadn’t researched this particular hair-brained scheme prior to class, the said student would look like a fool. I wanted to spar with him and just make up some stuff, but didn’t have the nerve to do so. Ah, the memories. And, yes, his contract was not renewed and, yes, as I believe many were aware, this incident was just the cute frosted roses atop a many tiered cake.
I also remember the aforementioned ice storm and the cancellation of class. AND, once power was restored, I remember trudging the entire distance from my house to campus because the car had been blocked in by an enormous pile of snow left by a plow. Upon arriving, I saw an ambulance at the base of the steps leading up to NondescriptCity Hall and a student on the landing that had apparently fallen and injured themselves grievously en route from the dorm. Made for interesting chit chat at my 8:00 o’clock.
Oh, man. I miss the insane professors…the good insane professors, that is…not the wicked insane professors.
“When I was your age I had to walk three miles to school in the snow. Naked!”
Heh. Getting old, Jess.
I quite frequently ran afoul of Dr. So-and-So’s extreme libertarianism. I remember how he used to pose complex mathematical questions to the class during lecture. When nobody would answer immediately (since it takes a few seconds to do multi-step math problems in your head), he would sigh and say, “Okay, all you people who went to government school can get out your calculators now.” Naturally, he used a tone for the phrase “government school” that one usually reserves for words like “leper colony.”
Meanwhile, he would often use me as a foil in his rhetoric sessions. For instance, he would be railing against government involvement in the economy and say, “You’re a big fan of government [i.e. a political science major], Jess; what do you think about all this?” I would occasionally reply with something along the lines of, “Well, Dr. So-and-So, if anyone is capable of making wise decisions about how I live my life, it’s the government. After all, I’m too biased to do it myself when it comes to things like healthcare, farm subsidies, and unemployment benefits.” Oddly enough, it seemed to amuse him and, in turn, usually spared me his wrath.
Ah, Dr. So-and-So. Those were the days…