New two-hour delay schedule puts us back in high school

You know those wonderful winter days when you wake up to six feet of snow outside your door?

In that extreme case, chances are a two-hour delay would be implemented for this university of ours. That used to mean any class before 10 a.m. was cancelled.

Not anymore.

Starting next semester, a new severe weather policy will be implemented for Slippery Rock University, one that contains a compressed class schedule in the event of a two-hour delay.

That's right.

A compressed schedule.

No, you're not in high school again. Calm down. This is still college. But it'll feel like high school.

Take a moment to remember all the way back to your high school days.

When a two-hour delay was implemented and you were so excited because that meant you would do absolutely nothing in every single one of your classes. Why? Because there wasn't enough time.

And now, here we are in college, doing the same exact thing that didn't work in high school.

Instead of just cancelling any classes that meet before 10 a.m., the new compressed schedule will allow for all classes to meet, but for a shorter amount of time.

For Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes, every period will last 35 minutes instead of the standard 50 minutes.

For Tuesday, Thursday classes, every period will last 60 minutes instead of 75 minutes.

Let's be honest here. It takes almost 35 minutes to get everyone to pay attention and remember what's going on in class.

Before you know it, the class will be over. What exactly is the point of that?

We understand the administration's sentiments that every class should get to meet. But sometimes, that just isn't the best solution.

We still believe the original two-hour delay system was better. Not perfect of course, no delay system ever will be. It's a delay. It's inconvenient. That's unavoidable.

But simply cancelling any class before 10 a.m. just makes more sense. You miss that class, yes. But it can always be made up.

That's what D2L and email is for. Professors can let students know what they need to do. They can virtually assign readings or other homework.

This new compressed schedule system has one major flaw – it messes up all of your classes for the day, not just the ones before 10 a.m.

We appreciate that the administration wants to make a change and revamp the severe weather policy, but perhaps they would've been better off to ask the students what we want.

After all, it's our classes that they're messing with.