My first class of the term, Writing for the World Wide Web, met last night, despite the weather and my resurfacing head cold. But today’s classes at EMU are indeed snowed out. Not surprisingly, the local public schools are closed too, so both my second grader son and I have a snow day.
To be honest, I have mixed feelings about EMU canceling classes. On the one hand, it does look pretty nasty out there, and we are a “commuter campus.” I’ve had lots of students over the years who drive an hour or more each way in normal conditions. Plus the people who work at EMU have to commute to campus, and plenty of folks who work at EMU drive quite a ways, too. And, to be selfish for a moment, the extra day will (hopefully) help me get caught up.
On the other hand, I think EMU is a tad quick in closing down. Despite the “commuter campus” reputation of EMU, I heard some statistic once that something like 70% of our students actually live within two or three miles of campus. In other words, they don’t drive very far. The University of Michigan’s attitude about closing is a lot more like my undergraduate institution, the University of Iowa: it never closes– well, almost never. I think Michigan closed once a couple years ago when it got down to -15 degrees (with a -40 or something windchill). Iowa closed once, I think when I was a Sophomore, and if I recall, it was the first time in 25 or 30 years that had happened.
Oh well, I’ll use the time to catch up and to really put my yard sale snow blower to the test.