Campus needed to close, plain and simple

IU’s decision to keep campus open in minus four degree weather spoke volumes to me. Bad ones.

If the school had to send out an email telling students how to protect themselves in order to defend the administration’s decision, perhaps that decision wasn’t a good one.

In the email, it even said students must bundle up to prevent lung damage.

Lung. Damage.

I don’t care what other reasons they had, keeping campus open told me IU did not care about the safety of its students.

Don’t get me wrong, I wore leggings under my pants and two layers of sweaters under my coat. I attended my classes, focused and ready to learn, even if I couldn’t feel my fingers.

But every time I walked outside, it was another reminder that campuses around the state were shut down, that we were in the middle of a polar vortex. Which, by the way, is a fantastic name for a weather condition.

For whatever reason, IU was prioritizing administrative needs over student safety.

As I walked to class, I couldn’t help but notice the sparse crowds and absent
classmates. If IU wanted to look good on paper, it shot itself in the foot.

Now hundreds, if not thousands, of IU students have absences on their records — a statistic that won’t look pretty when the semester attendance reports roll around.

And it’s just plain stupid.

Business are closed, roads are closed, half the state is boarded up and the other half is just preparing.

Asking people to venture outside because they are afraid of a missed quiz or a zero in participation is almost ludicrous, and at the very least terribly unfair.

In certain ways, it reminds me of living with construction in Forest dormitory and around the southeastern neighborhoods last year.

The constant dust, holes in the ground, broken water pipes and heat pipes, and faulty electricity all indicated a complete lack of care for ­­— or understanding of — basic student needs.

It makes me question what IU’s priorities are.

Clearly, students don’t even crack the top 10.

­— ewenning@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Emma Wenninger on Twitter at
@EmmaWenninger.