Staff Writer
The winter weather has brought some adverse effects as a result of snow closings and delays. Students might have had the day off from class; however, the break from coursework is only temporary.
In February and March, Salisbury University closed five times in addition to two delays that opened campus at 10 a.m.
The decision for a closing or delay comes from a discussion between University Police and Academic Affairs in regards to road, sidewalk and parking lot conditions after, during or before impending weather.
After reviewing campus conditions, University Police Chief Edwin Lashley makes a recommendation to Academic Affairs in regards to the campus community’s safety.
“It’s one of the toughest calls we have to make,” he said. “The University does a great job trying to get the campus ready for business but I would caution (students) to heed and read the warnings and recommendations.”
Senior Kevin Reynolds agrees that safety is a priority.
“Safety should always come first with the kind of winter weather we’ve had,” he said.
With Chief Lashely’s insight, Provost and Senior Vice-President for Academic Affairs Diane Allen decides whether a closing or delay is appropriate for the given conditions.
The decision impacts students’ education because Academic Affairs accounts for every hour each student should be receiving instruction within the classroom environment.
Allen said this academic year had two snow days already built in, but the remaining hours would need to be made up.
“For this third day, what we have suggested for faculty is if they did not do something online for their students,” Allen said, “then, they could take Reading Day (May 13) and use that as flexibly as they need to.”
With class cancellations falling on various days throughout the week, many professors have had to make arrangements in their semester’s schedule.
Communication arts associate professor Lori DeWitt says one of the biggest challenges is keeping students up to date on course material.
“The instructors need to communicate,” DeWitt said. “They need to make sure their expectations are clear and are reaching out to students and let them know what’s going on.”
However, DeWitt explains that it’s not just up to the instructor to make up for lost class time.
“I think the best thing that students can do is just be aware of contingency plans,” she said. “Think about if this (cancellation) happens, that’s obviously going to throw things back, so maybe I want to get a little ahead.”
DeWitt says she feels the university is better off compared to public schools because the university has a more flexible schedule.
Next year, however, SU will follow the University System of Maryland school schedule, which has zero snow days built in.
According to Allen, starting in the fall, all classes will be automatically listed into MyClasses. Therefore, she has asked professors to prepare to use this software if such weather-related incidents were to occur.
Allen says this preparation will ultimately become beneficial.
“We don’t actually have to make up for the (snow) day, (coursework is) actually done at your leisure at home,” she said.
Recently, DeWitt has already been implementing this method of online communication to reorganize her classes.
“I have to move some of my instruction from in the classroom to out of the classroom and MyClasses is a way to do that, so that’s been fortunate,” she said.
Some students have noticed a change in their classes already. Senior Marcus Bagley says one of his professors has had to readjust the syllabus to catch up, which is hard with other classes that haven’t been affected.
“Some professors were proactive and structured their syllabus to anticipate something like this,” Bagley said.
While taking four sciences, Sophomore Noel Blizzard says, “With the classes I’m taking, it’s a lot of stress.”
Meanwhile, the snow cancellations have been fun, but in terms of academics, it has proven to be an obstacle that will not diminish the success at SU.