What happens when there is a hurricane day at the start of a semester? I know part of the answer, and we’ll find out the rest of the week.
It was probably best that the University of South Florida closed all campuses today, though Tropical Storm Isaac veered away from the west coast of the Florida peninsula. There was no way to guarantee that Isaac would track away from the Tampa Bay area, and the weather could have been much worse. University administrators decided first to close the campuses and other facilities that are on the Gulf coast. In the afternoon, USF announced that the Tampa campus would be open, and then in the evening they announced that operations in Lakeland would be closed (USF in Lakeland is on the campus of Polk State College, so Polk’s decision controls options there). And then, a few hours after saying Tampa would be open, the administration reversed course and announced a bit before 7 pm that everything on Tampa would be closed today except for the clinical medical facilities.
That sequence led to a little confusion. As a department chair, I first sent out an email in late afternoon repeating what administrators had circulated about student (non)attendance and the Republican National Convention and asking that the same spirit be applied here. And then a few hours later I was dealing with a different question, about Monday-only classes that would not meet face-to-face until September 10. As one colleague explained, Monday-only classes are now missing 3 out of 15 meetings for the semester with Isaac, Labor Day, and Veterans Day (celebrated on Monday, November 12). We’ll all puzzle that out over the next few days.
At least from what I can tell, my colleagues did not sit home and relax today, though a number of them have school-aged children they had to care for. I’ve seen some creative ways to address student needs, and plenty of email traffic among faculty about the storm and more mundane matters. Also a few from hourly staff, who are given administrative leave in emergency closures and had no obligation to work from home today.
I got a few things done, and since today only had one scheduled obligation anyway, I should have been able to do the same at the office… well, except for the inevitable last-minute items that need attention the first week of a semester. That starts shortly after I get into the office tomorrow morning.