By JONAS MILLER
Co-Executive Editor
With winter in full swing, the Capitol Region finally saw its first big snowfall of the season. Unfortunately, with the snow comes bad driving conditions, and for Saint Rose—a school that sees two-thirds of its students commute daily—complications naturally arise.
Saint Rose saw not one but two snow days in the last two weeks. With more snow expected, students and faculty are frustrated.
John Dion, a professor of business at the College, recognizes that most students probably enjoy an unexpected day off.
“While I know they are occasionally necessary for safety’s sake, for me they cause a little bit of stress once we return to class,” Dion said.
Dion, like many professors, plans out his entire semester and shares this plan with students through a syllabus. When a day of class is missed due to weather, it throws off the entire schedule.
“Losing a day can have a ripple effect on the rest of the semester,” Dion said. “Lectures and assignments are designed to coincide, so I have to delay assignments until the lectures catch up.”
As it worked out, the two most recent snow days fell on Tuesday and Thursday respectively, meaning that a class that meets twice a week on those days is now two days behind. Dion’s class falls into that category.
“If there are two sections of a course, I don’t want to cover more material in one section than the other,” Dion said. He added that as a precaution, he always builds a little bit of wiggle room into his syllabus to account for this sort of situation, but no snow days would be the ideal scenario.
Professors aren’t the only ones hurt by snow days.
Senior Lindsay Moran “hated” the second of the two snow days, citing the fact that as someone who lives off campus, she already feels “out of the loop” when it comes to campus events, and that when the College closes for a day it certainly doesn’t help.
“I’m only on campus two days a week,” Moran said. She added that because the “vacation” days fell on Tuesday and Thursday, she now feels behind in the class that she had to miss twice.
“I suppose there are a fair number of students who like snow days,” Dion added.
The Chronicle was unable to get accurate statistics on how many students slept with their pajamas inside out, but a reliable source reported a “large amount of superstitious activity” from the student body looks to be the reason for the second snow day.
