By Kelly Haberstroh
Editor-in-Chief
For the first time in over 40 years, St. Bonaventure University closed campus for the day. Last Thursday, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Joe Zimmer signed off on the decision to cancel classes. While the decision was a collaborative one, Zimmer was the one who made the final call.
Upon seeing the wind chill of -31 degrees at 5:30 a.m. and the forecast of a wind chill warning with wind chills worse than -20 degrees for most of the day, President Dennis DePerro and Zimmer came to the conclusion that closing the university for the day – except for dining services and maintenance staff – was warranted.
Leading up to the cancellations, an email was sent out via the Notice Board on DePerro’s behalf, warning the community to limit time outdoors. The email also encouraged students to contact Safety and Security for a ride if they don’t have a car or a ride from a friend. However, the email also emphasized that if people were wearing the proper winter gear, there would be no risk to walk outdoors for a few minutes to the dining hall, library, Richter Center or academic buildings.
According to Tom Missel, the chief communications officer, university officials chose to cancel on Thursday as opposed to Wednesday because the wind chills were forecasted to be worse on Thursday.
“Of course, in hindsight, had we known Thursday wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the forecast, we wouldn’t have closed. But when you’re making decisions that involve student safety, you’re relying on expert advice to guide those decisions,” Missel said. “Unfortunately, despite the advances in meteorology, it’s still an inexact science at times. The winds that were forecast Thursday to drive the wind chills down never materialized in our area.”
While Zimmer makes the ultimate call, he doesn’t do it alone. In a more traditional weather scenario involving a snowstorm or ice storm, Gary Segrue, the director of Safety and Security, will contact the county sheriff’s department before sunrise to get a report on road conditions and potential travel bans.
The director of facilities will then touch base with Segrue to report on campus road and sidewalk conditions. Segrue will then contact the provost to discuss the situation and make a recommendation on whether classes should be cancelled, according to Missel.
“In this particular case, road conditions weren’t an issue because the snowstorm was impacting areas 50 or more miles to the north, so the recommendation was based solely on the conditions at that moment and the forecast for the day,” Missel said.
Professors can use their own discretion to cancel and reschedule their classes, especially when it might involve their safety in traveling to campus, Missel said.
“Not all of our faculty live locally. We fully support their right to do that,” Missel said. “A university-wide closing is obviously less desirable, simply because that means more work or classes will need to be made up.”
The Wednesday night before the cancellation, students circulated change.org petitions in attempt to get classes cancelled. Simultaneously, parents of students commented in the Parents & Families of St. Bonaventure University Facebook group.
“It had no impact,” Missel said about the correlation between the student and family response and the cancellation. “The decision was made based solely on the conditions Thursday morning and the forecast we were provided for the remainder of the day.”
According to Missel, the only response they did have was DePerro issue the statement he made Wednesday afternoon just to let the campus community know we were monitoring the situation. They then posted that statement to the university’s social media channels to let parents and others know.
habersk15@bonaventure.edu
