Bad weather forces closure of campus, rescheduling of events
Skiff Staff

A mixture of bad weather and worse driving conditions caused the campus to be closed Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Students and professors received a few days off after all classes and official university events were canceled during these days.

University officials said the weather caused the biggest problems with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools visiting team.

Any missed classes and make-up work would be up to the individual professors to reschedule, officials said.

Also, individual colleges, organizations and the athletics department have decided to reschedule or permanently cancel their respective events.

Despite the frosty weather, no major problems have been reported on campus, officials said.

Add Ran College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Mary Volcansek, dean of the Add Ran College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said Wednesday that the biggest university closure problem caused will be rescheduling exams or papers that were due during that time.

Volcansek also said the SACS team was frustrated because the weather made it very difficult to see members of the faculty and student body. She said TCU likes to show off its faculty and students, and the cancellations made it almost impossible.

Volcansek said she was able to get caught up on a stack of old paper work during the break, and believes that life will return to normal Thursday.

Brite Divinity School
David Gouwens, interim dean of the Brite Divinity School, said that while the cancellation of classes Tuesday and Wednesday was a problem for professors with tests scheduled, it was the right decision to help keep the students safe.

He said the Brite Divinity School has a high percentage of students who are commuters, and that the safety of the students was the administration’s main concern.

Gouwens said each professor within the school will be responsible for rescheduling tests and papers that were missed during the days the university was closed.

Gouwens said that most professors have been working at home during the break, but added that closing of the university was bad for the SACS visit because they were not able to do as much as they had planned.

College of Communications
William Slater, dean of the College of Communications, said the closed university caused many SACS appointments to be canceled,

Slater also said a campus-wide lecture by special guest John Merril Jr., the journalismGreen Honors Chair, had to be canceled. Merril left Wednesday and Slater said rescheduling the lecture would be difficult.

Slater said this is the worst weather situation he has experienced during his time at TCU.

However, he said it will affect the rest of the semester and everyone will be able to catch up without a problem.

School of Education
Sam Deitz, dean of the School of Education, said the weather has not impacted school events.

“It’s nothing that can’t be fixed,” he said. “Meetings can be rescheduled.”

Deitz said the biggest impact the weather has had is on the accreditation visiting team.

“The biggest problem is the SACS visit but that’s gone on too,” he said. “They never got a chance to go visit (the Bailey Building). They were able to meet with some students on campus Tuesday though.”

Deitz said he was on campus Tuesday speaking with SACS visitors, but Wednesday he stayed home.

“I live on a hill, so it was tough to get out,” he said.

M.J. Neeley school of Business
Robert Lusch, dead of the M.J. Neeley School of Business, said the weather caused cancellations of a family forum meeting, but the meeting will not be rescheduled.
Lusch said the biggest problem with the cancellations would be the missed classes.

“Everyone is going to have to work a lot harder to catch up,” he said. “You could be stranded at the airport, have car trouble or have a death in the family. It’s just one of those uncontrollable things that happens that you cope with and have to work hard to get back on track with.”

Lusch said it was unusual to cancel back-to-back days.

“I’ve only been here three years but it’s new territory to me,” he said. “We had some pretty bad weather when I was at (the University of Oklahoma), but I can’t recall them ever canceling back-to-back days in my 25 years there.”

College of Fine Arts
Scott Sullivan, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said the canceled classes will make most professors re-evaluate their course plans or change their syllabi. It will be up to each professor to make individual arrangements about how he or she wants to handle the missed classes, he said.

“Faculty have their courses planned according to the number of classes they have,” Sullivan said. “They have to figure out how they’re going to cover the material that they would have covered had classes not been canceled.”

Sullivan said there were originally meetings scheduled for SACS site visitors to meet with department chairmen, chairwomen and faculty, but they were not able to do that.

“We called some (professors) who live close to campus and we had them come in and meet in a small group with the SACS visitors,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that they weren’t able to meet with the SACS visitors as much as he would have liked, but that he doesn’t think it will affect the department anymore than any other department.

“It’s just an opportunity that we would have liked the SACS people to have to learn about the things we do here,” Sullivan said.

He said the only event that was canceled was the TCU Wind Symphony concert Monday night. He said Curt Wilson, director of jazz studies, was going to premiere an original composition at the concert. The music department will be in charge of rescheduling the concert when they can find a date that works for them, he said.

The Skiff was unable to reach deans from the College of Health and Human Sciences and the College of Science and Engineering.

Physical Plant
A Physical Plant employee said things were running smoothly on campus and there were no problems. He said with the bad weather, employees were on campus to check the equipment.

International Week
The canceled International Week events will be held sometime next week, said Tahira Hussain, International Week coordinator.

Poetry Night will be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Student Center, Suite 111.

Replacement times and dates have not been set for the Cultural Exhibit and the Martial Arts Demonstration, Hussain said.

The events scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday will happen as planned, barring any other cancellations, she said.

An updated schedule will be posted on the International Student Association Web site (www.isa.tcu.edu).

Rise and Run
Ryan Foley, a sophomore business management major and president of the Rise and Run event, said Rise and Run has been postponed until after Spring Break, but the new date has not yet been decided.

“I am disappointed, but I also realize that this was neither expected nor preventable,” Foley said. “We don’t want to put anyone in jeopardy. It’s not worth getting anybody hurt or worse on the trip when it can be rescheduled.”

Foley said after speaking with the Department of Transportation, he learned no efforts have been made to clear the roads in which they would have been traveling.

He said the route will not change, and the roads are currently too dangerous.

“Even if the ice did melt, the roadways and shoulders would be completely saturated, which would not be safe for our runners,” Foley said. “The liability and risk associated with that was just too great.”

The route runners would have used was on smaller state highways with less traffic, Foley said. He said the Department of Transportation told him that because these roads have a lower daily traffic average, they’re probably not going to be cleared by this weekend.

Foley said the delay in the event will give event organizers time to get more honorary volunteers to run at the beginning of the relay. He said the biggest problem with getting honorary runners originally was that it interfered with the SACS visit.

Athletics
The baseball and men’s and women’s tennis teams all felt the impact of the weather this week.

The men’s tennis match against Southern Methodist Wednesday has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. March 5 in Dallas, according to (www.gofrogs.com).

The women’s tennis team’s match with Texas Tuesday was originally rescheduled for Thursday, but now has been canceled due to the inclement weather, according to the Web site.

Also, the Tuesday evening baseball game against Southwest Texas in San Marcos was postponed. No makeup date has been announced.

Steve Fink, director of Athletic Media Relations, said the overall affect on TCU sports was minimal.

The football team’s Night of Champions weightlifting competition is still scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the Walsh Complex. The team will begin spring football practice Saturday.

Office of Communications
“We expect to be under normal operation (Thursday) as far as I know,” said Kelli Horst, director of communications.

She said if that doesn’t happen, students should once again consult the TCU Web site, call the information hotline or check their TCU e-mail accounts for university cancellations or information about classes being postponed.

Horst said SACS visitors were unable to complete all their on-campus interviews and that some of the interviews are being rescheduled by phone.

Editor in chief Jacque Petersell, managing editor Kelly Morris, news editors Jordan Blum and Laura McFarland and staff reporter Braden Howell contributed to this report.
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