Collegio Online

Issue date: 2/14/08 Section: Front Page

Media Credit: Shiho Itooka

An ice storm left Southeast Kansas roads icy and slick Monday morning, leading numerous PSU faculty members to cancel the day's classes. But many students braved the roads to come to class anyway only to find they were canceled.

Amanda Linton, sophomore in biology, became irritated quickly when she went to her 9 a.m. class for a test and then found it to be canceled when she got there.
"I had to walk around in soaked jeans and socks to find out that we didn't have class," said Linton. "I mean, how hard is it to just write a small e-mail at 5 or 6 in the morning saying we don't have class?"

Audrey Conway, senior in communication, also came to campus Monday morning to find her class canceled because of the weather. Conway says that PSU should take action and require teachers to e-mail their students at an early time and let them know whether they have class or not on days where there is bad weather.

"I am irritated that if I don't go [to class] because it's not canceled yet that I'll get in trouble, but most likely it'll be canceled," said Conway. "It is very inconvenient."

PSU authorities acknowledge that incidents such as these are not uncommon, but the school offers a variety of ways to get informed about class cancellations.
Compounding the problem Monday morning was a computer crash that crippled the school's web site and e-mail services.
"It's a complicated issue," said Steve Scott, vice president for academic affairs. "Last December when we had the bad storm, a professor talked to me about her situation where all of the students in the class she was teaching were in the residence hall... and they went ahead and had class."

Scott says that another professor told him that he had good attendance in his Monday morning class despite the bad weather.
"We maintain the principle that faculty are the best people to make these decisions about holding or not holding each individual class," Scott said.

Still, for those occasions when faculty members deem the weather too bad to hold class, Scott says having several ways of disseminating information is necessary.
"I think there are a variety of options and that showed this Monday," Scott said.
Among those options: e-mail messages from instructors, messages on the ANGEL system, and postings on GUS.

Unfortunately, none of those methods were easily available to students on Monday morning, as the server that handles both e-mail and the PSU web site had crashed due in part to a flood of spam e-mails and was not up and running until Monday afternoon.

"The GUS system was still up, but a lot of people get to it through the web site and check for cancellations," said Jerry Smith, director of information services. "Angel was the same way. I'm doing some thinking now so people know there's other ways to get to GUS and ANGEL and that kind of stuff."

But Smith says that crashes like this are a very rare occurrence, noting that the server hasn't crashed in the seven years he's worked at Pitt State..

"Usually we don't have the whole thing go down like that at one time," Smith said. "Unfortunately, it was also one of the worst days it could do it. But I don't know how to control it from that perspective."
Still, Smith said, at least one of the options for announcing class cancellations - e-mail, ANGEL, or GUS - should be available at all times in the future. In addition, department heads and administrative specialists should be able to notify callers of cancellations over the phone. If nothing else, students can call the campus police to inquire about cancellations.

Smith says he may start an education campaign of some sort to let people know how to access GUS and ANGEL when the PSU site is unavailable.

But as another layer of protection, there may soon be another method of spreading the news - text messages.

"Basically we're going to have to bid it, because it's over the minimum bid price, but what we want is a system that will actually provide messages in the event that there is an emergency of some type on campus," said Howard Smith, chair of the Crisis Response Committee, a group that is looking to improve how PSU handles emergencies.

Smith says that the text message system will also be linked to the national weather service, but stresses that texts must be sent only when there is a serious threat, because these messages often cost money to receive.

"It will also allow for parents to sign on and significant others - anybody that knows somebody (at the site of an emergency) wants to know what's happening," Smith said.

While the main focus of the text message system will be on alerting students about weather and other emergencies, Smith says the system may also be used to alert students about class cancellations.
However, Smith says he is unsure about the practicality of issuing personalized messages to so many students.

Barbara Herbert, director of the OIS help desk, echoes Smith's comments.

"It's really difficult to get text messages out," Herbert said. "We need to know every name in the class. But it's definitely on the list."

Ways to find out if class is canceled

-Call the campus operator at 231-7000
-Call the administrative specialist for your department
-Log on to GUS or ANGEL

If the PSU Web site is down, log on to GUS or ANGEL directly:
-GUS - http://go.pittstate.edu
-ANGEL- http://pittstate.angellearning.com
-As a last resort, call the campus police at 235-4624

Additional reporting by Tonya Tomory

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