You’re Kidding, Right?

View From My Back Door
View From the Front of My Place

For those of you who aren’t residents of Saskatchewan, you might not be aware of the ridiculous dump of snow we have experienced over the last few days. If you want to read more about it, you can here.   Many roads outside of the city have been closed and travel hasn’t been recommended.  If you’re interested, Global Regina has a Storm Watch page set up, where there have been many great photos posted  (just a warning, this link will probably be dead in a few days).

This morning, I woke up, looked outside and hoped that classes would be cancelled.  So I immediately checked my university email. Nothing, dang.  I checked the University’s homepage. Nothing, again.  Alright, looks like I have to get up and go.  I quickly showered, chomped down some breakfast, and threw on all my snow gear, making myself resemble how i looked when my parents used to dress me up to play outside as a child.

There was no hope in driving this morning with all the snow.  This isn’t a big deal for me, since I usually walk the 4 km to the University anyways.   It usually takes me about half an hour.  I expected it to take a little longer today with all the extra snow to get through.  Before I left the house at 7:35, I checked my email and the university website again.  Nothing.  Alright, looks like I have to suck it up and go.

Unfortunately for me, maybe one out of every 20 houses had shoveled their sidewalks, so I was breaking trail the entire way.    An hour and fifteen minutes later, after pushing five cars out of snow banks and battling through some snow banks as high as my hips, I arrived at the University.  Only fifteen minutes late.  Not too bad, considering the circumstances.  I quickly stripped off all my snow gear and rushed to my 8:30 class a sweaty mess.

As I walked into my classroom and apologized for being late, my professor informs me that classes were cancelled. You’re kidding, right?  He refreshed the University’s webpage to show me that a message had been posted.

Notice: all classes, including evening and off campus classes have been cancelled
for January 25th. The campus will remain open but with limited services

View from the Front
View From the Back Door

Unbelievable.  I’m quite sure I wasn’t the only one who had no idea until they arrived at the University.  Did they ever care to email me informing me that classes were cancelled?  Sure they did, but it’s not much help when they send it at 8:49.  Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed.

Is this acceptable?  What about those students who may have attempted to come in from out of town or drive across the city?  What if I had a midterm I had to frantically attempt to get to?  Should there not be a better system for situations like this?   What if a student had attempted to come and got into a serious accident or something along those lines all for no reason?

Thankfully the day wasn’t a total rest, I got some work done at the University and a great workout pushing cars and trekking through snowbanks.  I just don’t think this situation was handled very well and apologize for my ranting.

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Comments 5
  1. I can totally sympathize, Kyle. My last year of college, I was commuting 15 miles. We had a day where every K-12 district within 60 miles of my university was canceled for the day. The only class I had that day had a ridiculous 2-absences-per-semester policy. (I could write a book about how ridiculous the entire class was, but I’m not that motivated). I got about 5 miles out of town before I turned around.

    As soon as I got home, I wrote a letter to the editor of the school paper, saying, in effect, that there needs to be an “unexcused absences for commuters” policy university-wide.

    Needless to say (I’ll say it anyone) such policy was never created. The letter got published, though, so I’ve got that going for me!

    Our middle school is getting rid of our phone tree and going with Twitter to pass along quick notes such as delays or meeting time changes. We created one account for the principal to use and everyone else will subscribe to that account. It’ll be interesting to see how it works.

  2. Russ, I’m currently in a 2-absences-per-semester class. It seems a little ridiculous to me. In the past I have had some health problems that caused me to miss three weeks straight. Luckily for me, my profs were really helpful trying to keep me up and with catching me up once I was back. However, if the absence policy is set in stone, how do you get around it? I like the idea of the policy you proposed and think something similar should definitely should be established, especially in locations where weather is a factor most days. I’m really interested to hear how the Twitter tree works out. If it seems to work well, maybe I can put a bug in someones ear here.

    Jackie, I think now would be a great time to come! One day I’ll save enough money to actually come!

  3. I totally agree with you! The cancelation of classes should have been posted on the U of R website ealier than it was and an email sent out earlier then after classes would have already started. Hopefully for next time they will be more on top of things, but hopefully there will not be a next time for the amount of snow we got!

  4. Chelsea, I really hope we don`t get dumped on like that again. The worst thing about the whole situation was that they should have a had a good idea of how things were going to be well in advance, on Sunday night. I hope they can be better prepared the next time something like this happens.

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