The choice to cancel classes, as the University did on March 5 and 6, is decided by a variety of factors in consultation with officials from Homewood and elsewhere.
Dennis O’Shea, executive director of media relations and crisis communications, helps make the decision as to whether or not to delay or cancel classes due to inclement weather. He said that many parties from nine different schools within the University are involved in the decision-making process.
“It involves the conference call of relevant people at about 5 o’clock in the morning, and these are people representing each of nine schools, representing facilities and security at our various campuses from Baltimore to Washington and everywhere in between and [representatives from] various programs like the library and athletics,” O’Shea said.
According to O’Shea, the officials involved in the decision-making process are given the weather forecasts and the current conditions on the various campuses.
“The University has meteorologists on retainer who give us an update on the very latest forecast right before we get on the phone,” O’Shea said. “Then we talk about campus conditions. Here at Homewood, we hear from facilities and from security. And generally, we do the same at the other campuses. Then, we try to come to a consensus as to what we ought to do based on the conditions and the forecast.”
O’Shea said that occasionally Hopkins will cancel classes the night before rather than early in the morning if the forecasts are looking particularly ominous. However, he said that due to the potential for inaccurate calls, the University has recently tried to make the decisions in the morning.
“Sometimes it works out,” O’Shea said. “Sometimes the forecast is a bust, and then you’re sorry you did what you did, one way or the other. More recently, we have tended to wait until 5 a.m. just so that we’re sure whatever the forecast is before it pans out.”
As has been demonstrated this year, the University takes concerns about ice as well as snow into consideration when deciding whether or not to cancel or delay classes.
“In many respects, ice is more of a concern than snow,” O’Shea said. “[On] Friday, for instance, when we made the decision to close for a second [day] straight, the concern at that point was not really accumulation, because there had been a reasonable amount of time to get snow off sidewalks and streets. It was really more of a [concern] that ice had formed, and the temperatures were so low Friday morning, in single digits or in very low double digits, that it seemed unlikely that a combination of sunshine and chemicals and rising temperatures would make the campuses safe enough fast enough. We have had other times this year where the temperature was higher, the sun was going to take effect and we knew that the chemical treatments would work quickly enough that we could open either on time or late.”
O’Shea said that the decision of whether or not cancel or delay classes is a balancing act because making sure students spend adequate time in the classroom is a priority for the University.
“We do send out a message every year at the beginning of the season, usually in December, just alerting people to the fact that the University places a very high priority, certainly on safety, but also on normal operations, because it’s important to get classes in and research in,” O’Shea said.
Freshman Holly Tice said she is not very concerned about missing classes and is excited by the prospect of an occasional day off.
“My first thought [when a snow day is announced] is ‘Great. Hopefully, teachers [will] just push work back,’” Tice said. “Maybe that night, after I’ve wasted the whole day just lying in bed, I start to get concerned.”
According to O’Shea, there are no snow days built into any of the University’s academic calendars, so any necessary adjustments must be made after the snow day has occurred.
“It really is much more realistic to expect that the schools and programs and individual faculty are the ones that are going to figure out the make-up situation,” O’Shea said.
O’Shea said that another concern is the ability of faculty and staff to travel to campus safely.
“When we’ve had late openings, like a 10 o‘clock opening or a noon opening, often that is not because of conditions on campus so much as conditions on side streets faculty and staff [use] to get here,” O’Shea said.
Kjerstin Kauffman, a Writing Seminars graduate student and lecturer, acknowledged that it can be difficult to get to Homewood on days when road conditions are poor.
“I don’t live too far away from campus, but I take the Mount Washington Shuttle to campus, so the roads have to be cleared for that to operate and that has to be operating for me to get [to Homewood],” Kauffman said.
O’Shea said he was unsure of how this year’s snow day count compares with ones of past years. However, he did note that in some years, the University cancels more class days than in other years.
“I do know that some years, [the snowfall] can be quite extensive,” O’Shea said. “As recently as Feb. 2010, we had two blizzards almost back to back and there [was], I think at some point, more than two feet of snow. We were closed for an entire week. So [it’s] totally dependent on how severe a winter we have.”
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