Practical Matters: Making Plans In the Face of Inclement Weather

by Sarah Kain Gutowski, Chair, New Member Program

Welcome back, new members and mentors! I hope everyone had a peaceful and productive holiday season and/or break, depending on your job duties.

Snow and sand and pine needles: Winter on Long Island

Like me, you probably spent a good amount of your time off (whether a few days or a few weeks) preparing for the new semester and the particular set of responsibilities and requirements it brings. Many teaching faculty, for instance, align course material with the academic calendar and plan a schedule of lectures and assignments. Many non-classroom faculty, too, anticipate deadlines or "busy seasons" based on the academic calendar (especially if you work in a skills center or the library). And committee members begin scheduling their meeting times and dates with an eye toward completing any number of charges.

If there's one thing I've learned about preparing for a new spring semester, however, it's that quite often the best plans are upstaged by the worst weather.

We've just experienced (some might say finally) genuine winter weather on Long Island: low temperatures, a dusting of snow, patches of ice on the road and frost on our cars when we leave the house in the morning. And it looks as though this weekend, while it won't be as much as other parts of the country (HAHAINYOURFACEBALTIMOREANDWASHINGTONDC), we'll be getting more snow, and maybe even more than a dusting -- stuff you have to actually shovel.

If we get more than what's predicted, or if some of it melts and then refreezes and then creates ICEPOCALYPSE on the LIE, we may have our normal class schedule disrupted. The administration really dislikes cancelling classes, but sometimes inclement weather forces a late start or an early closing to the school day. If this happens, you'll be notified a couple of different ways:

1. Facebook will erupt in a bunch of "no school today!" posts. Just kidding. (Well, kind of.) 
2. The school will post news about the closing on the home page. 
3. Also, inside the MYSCCC portal. 
4. Also, also, in an email to your school account announcing the closing. 
5. Also also also in a voicemail message (particularly if the closing occurs during the already-in-process school day).
6. Additionally, on any number of local radio stations, including 97.5 FM or 1370 AM, 102.3 FM & East 95.3 FM, 106.1 FM, 92.1 FM 92.1 FM, 103.9 FM, 103.1 FM, 96.1 FM
7. Aaaaaaannnnnddd: News Channel 12 (As Local As Local News Gets!) on TV

So my point is that it'll be really easy to tell whether or not you're expected, as a Faculty Association member, to report to your campus. If you have extenuating circumstances, though, brought about because of the weather -- such as childcare or transportation issues -- and you need to take a personal day and cancel classes, try not to stress too much about the cancellation. I would advise, however, accessing your Blackboard course space and posting an announcement -- easily emailed to students with the click of a button in the Announcement screen-- as soon as possible, so that your students can avoid driving all the way to campus only to find out you're not holding class.

(You can also access an email list on Banner (if, of course, you can actually access Banner  . . . *le sigh*) under the Faculty Services Menu: select "Class Roster" and then scroll to the bottom, where you'll find a button that reads "Display Email List." Select all of the revealed text, copy it, and paste it into an Outlook email -- and this way you can avoid using Blackboard if you really, really want to  . . . even though it's really, really easy (read: much easier) to use Blackboard.)

Additionally, it might help you to know that many of our students rely on public transportation and/or family and friends to get to campus, and their ability to travel may be hindered greatly. On days when there's really bad weather involved, it's best to be gracious and flexible regarding your attendance policies. And if you're forced to cancel class while the rest of Suffolk spins on, be gracious to yourself, too, and don't have a melt down because you can't cover all of the material you planned originally, pre-snow (like *cough* I did, just a few short semesters ago). Remember that if your students can meet all of the learning outcomes on the college's course syllabus by the end of the semester (you can find all of them posted here), you'll be doing your job -- even if this semester's covered material doesn't look exactly like that of previous semesters.

So, fingers crossed that we have just enough snow to play in over the weekend -- with the bulk of it disappearing by Monday! And best of luck with your first weeks of the spring semester -- even if it doesn't feel very spring-like at the moment.

Welcome Back, Inclement Weather!

I don't know if you've noticed, but it's snowing outside.

 

I'm sure your students have noticed. I'm sure the four students who were missing from my 9:30 a.m. English 102 will use it as an excuse for missing the first class of the semester, even though the snow didn't really become snow out here until about 11 a.m. As of noon today, the college has officially cancelled activities after 5 p.m. -- and those students with evening classes aren't worried, anyway, because evening classes don't begin at SCCC until next week.

 

How did I know about the cancellation of activities after 5 p.m., you might ask? The SCCC homepage. THEN, because I'm on campus, I received a voicemail message from the President's office. If you're not in the office yet you can also check with News Channel 12 if, for some reason, you can't check the SCCC page -- but I have a feeling that if you can't check one, you're probably not going to be able to check the other, either.

 

This post isn't about finding out about cancellations, anyway. It's about what to do once your ambitious course schedule for the semester -- the one you agonized over during the break, the one you balanced down to the minute -- becomes ferkockteh and you find yourself fermisht.

 

If classes are cancelled at SCCC -- or if you find yourself forced to cancel classes on your own because of illness , etc. -- or if you're non-teaching faculty and it isn't a classroom schedule that's disrupted but rather a project -- try to take a deep breath and remember that deadlines can and should be flexible.

 

For teaching faculty, I think we worry sometimes about making sure we cover enough material. We worry that if we have cancelled classes, we won't be able to fulfill our obligations to our students and SCCC within the time remaining.

 

One way to help yourself adjust or revise your course outline after a cancellation is to revisit the course description and learning outcomes as established by the college for your courses. Technically, we're all required to include these course descriptions and learning outcomes in our course outlines, but if you weren't aware of that requirement, don't worry -- you can begin including them next semester.

 

Where might you find these course descriptions and learning outcomes? Here, under Academics on the SCCC web site. Enter in the course number, and you'll be given a link to a document that looks something like this:

 

Stunning, isn't it?

 

These syllabi are part of a recent undertaking on the part of the College (spurred by the Middle States commission) to centralize and make available the syllabi for all of the courses offered at our institution. Their creation means this: the college course syllabus is a syllabus -- NOT the paper that you hand to your students on the first day of class. I know -- shocker, right? Rather, the description of your course as you teach it -- complete with your schedule of assignments and classroom policies -- is considered a COURSE OUTLINE.

 

On a related note, were you aware that your course should not list objectives? Because objectives are things that one intends to attain. OUTCOMES are definitive end results -- and even though you have no control over variables such as your students' intelligence or their individual work ethics -- if a student completes the course (READ: "Complete" equals a grade of D or higher), in the language of the course syllabus, "students WILL BE ABLE TO . . . "

 

No matter who they are. No matter how smart they are. No matter how good of a student he or she turns out to be.

 

Oh, the English Language! We. Have. Fun.

 

Anyway, pet peeves such as GroupThink and Institutional Language aside, it is useful for our students to see that a course being taught by several different instructors across three different campuses will have commonalities. It also helps when they try to transfer credits they earned here to  four-year institutions.

 

So . . . back to keeping your Grand Semester Plan chugging along! I find that these course syllabi are useful to instructors, too, particularly when you find yourself short on time and long on material to cover. The syllabi act as good reminders: there are very particular aims for each course, and those aims as detailed by the college rarely include specific material. As long as you can ensure that your students have met, in some way, each of the outlined outcomes, you've met your obligations as an instructor.

 

Do we meet our obligations more thoroughly and more efficiently some semesters? Sure. But that's the ebb and flow of an academic's life.

 

And I guess that's my point. Your career, and our students' education, occur within the context of lives. We all know that our students aren't going to die or suffer or become impoverished because they don't get to read Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. In fact, some English majors can go their entire academic careers without ever reading it. (*Cough* RIGHT HERE *Cough*) So don't worry too much over whether or not you get to accomplish all of the brilliant lectures and group discussions and writing assignments you laid out before your students when the semester was bright and shiny and new. Your students will think of your class as bright and shiny even when it's no longer new to them if you remember to relax, breathe, and allow some flexibility in your classroom.

 

OH, and now classes are cancelled as of 3 p.m. today. So some of us will be adjusting those class assignment schedules sooner rather than later . . .

 

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p.s. Check out this press release about New Members Meredith Starr and Richard Mack! (Or better yet, go see their show!)