How the university messed up

I realize we have had many days canceled due to weather in the past couple weeks, but classes should have been canceled Friday, Feb. 8 on top of being canceled the previous day. It was negative 40 degrees with wind chill at 10 a.m. that day, so anyone who walked to class at that time or during it endured something people shouldn’t endure. You can’t walk outside in that weather; it’s simply too cold. Classes were canceled Thursday, Feb. 7 due to heavy snow, which is understandable. While there wasn’t as much snow Friday, it was way colder.

I know it can be difficult to pull the trigger and give students back-to-back days off, but if the conditions are like they were on Friday, that gun must be fired. You can’t make students suffer in the cold like that. I realize the average wind chill temperature this time of year in Fargo is probably negative 20 or something like that, but negative 40 is dangerous to step outside in.

Classes should have been canceled Friday, Feb. 8 on top of being canceled the previous day. 

It’s 2019; we have technology. We can still get assignments done. If the administration is really that concerned with students missing class, why don’t they just tell instructors to email us assignments for the day. I’m not saying I want that, but if it means not having to walk in negative 40 degree weather, I would be willing to consider.

When I went to high school, we got our own MacBook Air laptops for school purposes. (Well, they were supposed to be used for school.) If we had a snow day, we had this thing called an “online class day.” It’s pretty self-explanatory. Teachers would email assignments that needed to be completed, usually due by the end of the day. Yeah, it sucked, but not having to wake up early, get into a freezing car and go to school was also nice.

It was negative 40 degrees with wind chill at 10 a.m. that day, so anyone who walked to class at that time or during it endured something people shouldn’t endure. 

In a way, I understand why classes weren’t canceled Friday. We did have a cancelation Thursday, and not having classes for four days in a row would be a little tough. Teachers would likely fall behind in their agenda, and the semester could get bad quickly. At the same time though, there’s going to be a lot of students that won’t even show up because they don’t want to “attempt” to survive in these atrocious conditions. I just think we should consider online assignments and accept the fact that sometimes back-to-back days off is necessary. They did it a couple weeks ago, and they should have done it again.