UW to Students: Break Your Neck For Your Degree!
The alert message on the UW intranet this morning:
UW Bothell has suspended all classes for Tuesday, Nov. 28. UW Tacoma has suspended operations for Tuesday, Nov. 28. There will be no classes and only essential personnel should report to work. UW Seattle remains open and operating on a regular schedule. This message will be updated if conditions change.
Yep. Tacoma and Bothell are shut down for the day, but the Seattle campus is wide open and operating despite the ice covering every sidestreet and hill north of the Ship Canal.
A few years ago, I had the following conversation with someone involved with determining whether the Seattle campus shuts down during bad weather:
Me: So how much snow does it take to close campus?
UW guy: Campus never closes.
Me: What if the streets were completely impassable, like in 1990?
UW guy: Campus never closes.
Me: You’re going to keep saying “campus never closes” no matter what I say, right?
UW guy: Yup.
In a way, it makes some sense — they can’t close the Medical Center during bad weather, so they can’t “close campus.” But getting them to pull the plug on classes, even just for the afternoon, is something akin to getting a Bush Administration official to admit their plans for post-war Iraq were an ill-conceived disaster. By the time they realize their mistake, you’re stuck and can’t get out.
I remember one instance in my eight years of affiliation with the UW when the campus closed. It closed, just for the afternoon about 4 years ago. I know tons of times the professors themselves cancelled classes - like today, most classes were out but quite a few students wandering, finding something to do such as libraries and museums.
That is really funny, because I just started working at UW November 6th. Yesterday I was one of three people who came in, and I asked one of them (who has been here forever) why the seattle campus didn’t close and the exchange was as you describe it VERBATIM. He even included the “well you can’t close a hospital” point.
Basically if you can’t make it in you use vacation, your annual use-it-whenever-you-want “personal holiday”, or take a non-paid day off.
UW main campus just canceled all evening classes for 11/29 — to which my coworker replied “wow, UW main campus canceled classes… i’ll need to write this down in the history books”
With a large proportion of the student body living on or near campus, it isn’t the students who are putting themselves at risk to get to class, it’s the faculty and staff who probably are braving the elements to make it into work.