It was 3:30 p.m. on February 1 when St. Bonaventure students, faculty and staff received a Special Notice Board stating the university could be shut down the following day because of a snow and ice storm. However, that storm did not impact the St. Bonaventure area as bad as it was forecasted, shattering the hopes of many who wanted a snow day.
February 2 turned out to be just another normal day at St. Bonaventure. Professors and students agreed that conditions did not warrant a closing that day, but they believe St. Bonaventure officials do not take into consideration those who commute to campus on a daily basis when severe winter weather occurs.
Vito Czyz, director of the Office of Safety and Security, said that morning a closing was being considered because many local school districts and colleges were closing nearby but the road conditions in the Olean area were suitable for driving.
Czyz said his midnight dispatcher contacted the Cattaraugus County Sheriffs Department that morning at 5:00 a.m. and at that point no travel bans or travel advisories were issued for Cattaraugus County.
Czyz said a travel ban means you can get ticketed for driving through a particular town or community and a travel advisory means only essential travel is recommended.
“If there were a travel ban throughout the county, we would have not recommended having anyone travel to campus that day, and we would have been ready to cancel classes. But the storm never materialized.”
Pauline Hoffmann, assistant professor in the School of J/MC, agreed that conditions were suitable for driving that day. However, she does not believe St. Bonaventure takes into account the safety of faculty and students commuting to campus during severe winter weather.
“I think they assume since most of the students live on campus they do not remember the faculty and students who indeed have to come to campus on a daily basis.”
Hoffmann said she travels from Alden, NY, which is 75 minutes away. She said sometimes in the winter it can take her over two hours to get to campus.
Czyz said it always is a difficult situation when deciding to cancel class because so many students live on campus even though a number of faculty come from the Buffalo and Rochester area.
“If we have a closure with 85% of students living on campus, that leaves them nothing to do. We would still have to make sure certain services are open for our students such as the library and Richter Center. It would be a long day for students if we just shut down the university completely.”
Even though classes were officially not cancelled that day, some professors, like Hoffmann, still decided to cancel class and put their assignments online. Hoffmann said she cancelled classes the day before and put assignments up on Moodle because she was concerned the snow storm might have left her stranded in Alden.
According to moodle.org, Moodle is a free web based applications that allows educators to create online learning sites and collect assignments.
“I think faculty and administrations think we have to have so many hours and so many days in the classroom. I do think it’s easier with online technology such as Moodle to put classes online in cases like this one.”
Students who commute to campus also agree with Hoffmann. Hilary Cleary, a sophomore Chemistry major, who commutes from Cuba, NY, said trying to get to campus in hazardous weather creates a lot of stress on students and faculty.
“They don’t take into account those who have to drive in these awful conditions. Not everyone really lives at Bonaventure. I do think it would be a good alternative for them to put assignments on Moodle if class had to be cancelled. Most of my professors use Moodle anyways.
Even though the university stayed open that day and classes were held, Czyz said this situation was a great test for the campus community.
The university utilized this situation to update all of their calling codes that alert news and radio stations to a closing. He also said many people on campus also updated their records with the E2 Campus text alert system that notifies students during emergencies via text messages.
“We have lived through a lot worse than that morning. There are days when you can’t see anything in front of your face and schools are open. I think a lot of schools and business overreacted that day,” he said.
