Here's the view from my back patio this morning.
We are having our first significant snowfall of the season today. Last night, the weather man said, "I'll be shocked if we get more than an inch." Well, to me it already looks like we've got a couple of inches out there. My drive from Martinsburg to Shepherdstown, which normally takes about 15 minutes, took twice that this morning. The main road looked like it hadn't been touched by a plow or anything. As I was driving, I was getting knots in my stomach thinking about having to drive home through that at 8:40, when my night class gets out.
At Shepherd, they are reluctant to close the school and cancel classes. Instead, they more or less leave it up to the professor. I found myself in a conundrum--it's the last regular meeting of this night class (finals start next week). The students haven't done their course evaluations yet and were supposed to do them tonight. Complicating matters even more, their research papers are due today. But many of the students in this class are commuter and I wouldn't feel right making them drive these roads at night. (And yeah, I didn't want to be driving at night either.)
In the end, I talked to the woman over in Institutional Research (the office that handles evaluations) and she said I wasn't the only person having this predicament. She gave me permission to have my students do evaluations during their final exam period. Normally, she explained, they don't allow that, since they think it's extra stress for students who should be focused on their exams. However, since there really isn't any other time, and since I'm not giving an actual exam (they're just handing in their writing portfolios), she said it would be fine.
As I was writing this, I just received word that just about everyone is canceling classes from this point forward, so I think I'll cancel my 2:10 as well and get the heck out of here.
Remember when we were little and snow was fun, not stressful?
2 comments:
Hey Heidi... I hope that you get home safely! and yay you for canceling classes!!
it is snowing here... but it is still way to warm for it to stick to the ground.
Thanks, Shan! I made it home and stayed home for the rest of the day. My friend Steph, who lives nearby and has an SUV, gave me a ride into work this morning. After she drives me home, I plan on staying home again the rest of the day as anything that melts today will turn to a sheet of ice tonight.
In the end, I think we got about 5 inches of snow (if not a bit more). And Shepherd ended up canceling classes after 4:00. That was a major score for me: since I canceled the night class *before* the school was officially closed, I looked compassionate and understanding to my students (which I am, of course), but I also didn't look too wimpy, since (eventually) the administration agreed that there shouldn't be any classes.
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