Ellington

There were interruptions to classes three out of the four weeks in November, both planned and unplanned.

With Veteran’s Day, a mid-week football game that caused some instructors to cancel their classes and motivated some students to skip others, the Thanksgiving holiday and two unexpected snow days, students had 17 days of class this month.

“It’s the concurrence of these events that makes this difficult … I suspect that many instructional faculty and many students probably feel a bit cut up,” said James W. Harrington, geography professor and Faculty Senate chair.

With the unanticipated school closures, professors made various adjustments to keep classes on track.

Minako Berthet, UW senior and psychology major, did not have classes canceled due to the game, but said that the other lost class days changed the pace and material of two of her classes.

“In [one of my classes], the professor canceled class on Monday, and then we missed Tuesday and Wednesday, so we’re behind three days of class, and [my professor] took out an entire chapter,” Berthet said. “So in one class, we’re still going at the same pace, we’re just not learning as much. But in my other class, we’ve just doubled our speed because we’ve had so little class in November.”

When Ana Mari Cauce, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was a professor, teaching winter quarter for her meant scheduling in a day that could be cut in the case of snow.

“When I put together the [class] schedule … I always had kind of one day that was ‘free’ because I figured either something would happen like snow, which was not an unusual thing during winter quarter, or it would give me more time if I went more slowly and needed time to catch up,” Cauce said. “But I don’t think that’s something that you at all plan on or think about when you’re teaching fall quarter.”

UW Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs Ed Taylor, also said that the fall-quarter snow days were unexpected.

“I don’t think many of us were prepared for a snow day this early in the year ­— or snow days, plural — this early in the year,” Taylor said. “I think faculty are going to have to accommodate students and students are going to have to accommodate faculty.”

Although Jack Johnson, UW graduate student and archaeology instructor, did not schedule class for the week of Thanksgiving to allow students time to work on a film project, he said the snow days made it impossible for some students to receive feedback on their drafts before break and prompted him to push back another project’s deadline.

“At this point in the quarter, it’s really tough to rearrange things to incorporate material that you missed out on. But, because I had given that time to students to work on projects, the content of the class wasn’t really altered all that much,” Johnson said. “I think for most of the students, it’s not going to hurt them in the long run because we have given them the extra time.”

Clarence Spigner, a health sciences professor, maintained that he will be able to adjust for the missed days, but was unhappy with canceling class due to the mid-week football game.

“Not all students can make classes even in the best of weather and we’ll adjust for that, the students will adjust for that, and of course as a faculty member I adjust as well, up to a certain point, of course,” Spigner said. “But, when all of the sudden there’s a football game or something occurs on campus that … didn’t have to happen, that causes a lot of problems for me.”

Despite the unexpected ­— and expected — interruptions to class days, Cauce believes that campus will be able to adjust.

“I think folks will be trying to figure out how to adjust [but] we will adjust. … I think that we will get through this,” she said.

Reach reporter Erin Flemming at news@dailyuw.com.