Our View

USA is known for its unwavering dedication to its academic calendar, but with Tropical Storm Ida’s arrival Nov. 10, USA took that dedication too far, putting its calendar ahead of student safety.

On Nov. 8,USA Director of Public Relations Keith Ayers sent out an e-mail acknowledging the expected “impact on the Mobile area is gusting winds and heavy rain, as well as flooding in tidal areas, beginning late Monday and early Tuesday.”

Those warnings alone should be enough for USA to cancel class for one day, but the calendar-god won out.

On Nov. 9, when reports of Ida making landfall early the next morning had local news broadcasts and Web sites buzzing with reports, USA and Spring Hill College were the only schools in the area that hadn’t announced a cancellation of classes for the next day. Bishop State Community College, Faulkner State Community College, and The University of Mobile all closed. Even some schools as far north as those in Washington County closed.

That evening, the Press-Register posted an online report listing the local institutions that had closed because of Ida. Mobile and Baldwin County schools would be closed that Tuesday. Numerous local organizations and businesses cancelled their meetings and events as they waited for Ida to hit the next day.

That evening, when Ida approached the Gulf Coast bringing heavy rain and wind, USA’s commuter students drove home in bleak weather, some of them realizing they would have to face the same conditions the next day while en route to USA.

Early on Nov. 10, with still no sign that the administration was letting up on its refusal to cancel classes and Ida still spewing nasty weather, commuter students drove back to USA to attend class, knowing they’d be counted absent if they weren’t present.

In an interview with The Vanguard, Ayers held that individual professors are allowed to cancel class if they feel weather conditions will be too hazardous for their students.

“It comes down to having faith in the faculty and in students to make the right decision for themselves,” he said.

It’s unfair for the administration to force students “to make the right decision” and choose between the risks of traveling in stormy weather or be counted absent when absences, in many professors’ classes, hurt students’ grades.

That “faith” Ayers spoke of is a cop-out for the administration to hide behind while it shakes off making an executive decision that’s not in favor of the academic calendar, which the administration idolizes.

It’s not the administration’s job to “have faith” in the student body; in the face of natural disaster, its job is to ensure student safety.

Not canceling classes and leaving it up to individual professors to hold classes doesn’t make sense. If professors deem the weather too dangerous to travel in, then so should the administration.

If one professor cancels class, others may not, which could make a student travel to USA for a mere one or two classes despite risky driving conditions.

Associate Director of Public Relations Scott Cox told The Vanguard that USA’s academic calendar allowed for Nov. 10 classes to be cancelled without professors having to make it up.

Thanks to the administration’s decision not to cancel classes, USA students whose children attend school during the week were seen toting their children from class to class on Tuesday, since local public schools heeded the National Weather Service’s hurricane watch and closed.

It appears that USA’s administration does not take these students’ concerns into account when deciding whether to cancel class for a natural disaster in an area that’s prone to hurricanes and tropical storms.

Unlike last year during Hurricane Gustav, the administration didn’t accommodate the student body. We hope that in the future, it will consider the welfare of the people of USA instead of deferring to a calendar.