Editorial: Closing wise choice in snow
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: Viewpoints
Wow.
UTM closed on Friday, Jan. 29, before the first snowflakes even fell.
We thank all who had a hand in that decision because we believe it was absolutely the right decision.
Of course, waking up Friday to a gray sky and no snow made us all wonder whether the predicted bad weather would miss us again, as it has so many times in the past. But it showed up about middle of the morning and hung on through Saturday morning, thus validating the decision to keep UTM faculty, staff and students, particularly our many commuters, safe.
We also appreciate the fact that so many sidewalks were cleared off quickly, with the exception of the one from Gooch to Humanities, which still was treacherous Monday morning.
We believe starting classes later on Monday also was a good idea. If nothing else, it gave the sun a chance to work with the gravel and salt and accomplish a bit more clearing before the school day got under way and campus became more crowded.
Of course, being journalists, we do have one complaint.
We noticed that the Administration Building parking lot was scraped, but apparently the rest of the stadium lots and Football Building lot were not scraped. We know the student lots weren't scraped. We know some folks, faculty included, were parking illegally because the lots were still too slick for some to navigate on foot.
We don't want our administrators to get hurt, but neither do we want us or our teachers busting our butts on the ice.
Perhaps where students walk and park should get cleared first. Just a thought.
And hey, we got a snow day.
UTM closed on Friday, Jan. 29, before the first snowflakes even fell.
We thank all who had a hand in that decision because we believe it was absolutely the right decision.
Of course, waking up Friday to a gray sky and no snow made us all wonder whether the predicted bad weather would miss us again, as it has so many times in the past. But it showed up about middle of the morning and hung on through Saturday morning, thus validating the decision to keep UTM faculty, staff and students, particularly our many commuters, safe.
We also appreciate the fact that so many sidewalks were cleared off quickly, with the exception of the one from Gooch to Humanities, which still was treacherous Monday morning.
We believe starting classes later on Monday also was a good idea. If nothing else, it gave the sun a chance to work with the gravel and salt and accomplish a bit more clearing before the school day got under way and campus became more crowded.
Of course, being journalists, we do have one complaint.
We noticed that the Administration Building parking lot was scraped, but apparently the rest of the stadium lots and Football Building lot were not scraped. We know the student lots weren't scraped. We know some folks, faculty included, were parking illegally because the lots were still too slick for some to navigate on foot.
We don't want our administrators to get hurt, but neither do we want us or our teachers busting our butts on the ice.
Perhaps where students walk and park should get cleared first. Just a thought.
And hey, we got a snow day.
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