Complaining about Monday classes? Well, Vox doesn’t blame you, but the D.C. media and their readers are complaining about you.
That’s right, upon hearing about Georgetown’s earnest Facebook efforts to protest the administration’s decision to bag our Presidents’ Day holiday, NBC Washington and Wonkette commenced with the mocking.
“Cranky Georgetown Students Protest Monday Classes; Georgetown ruins snow days. And won’t someone PLEASE think of the founding fathers?” was the headline of NBC’s Carissa DiMargo’s stinging brief about our Facebook group and general displeasure over the snow day.”
“We get it, kiddos — a lot of you had already made travel plans,” she writes. “But let’s be honest. Are you reeeeally trying to ‘Protect Our National Holiday!’ as the name of the group suggests?
“Yep, won’t someone just think of the founding fathers for a change? The founding fathers WANT these students to have off from class! Jeez!”
While the kids at JHU assumed Hitler would be outraged by the cancellation of classes, the Georgetown version—created by Vox‘s favorite Tweeter, King Georgetown—takes the meme a different direction, showing the Fuhrer’s response to Provost James O’Donnell’s decision to hold classes on President’s Day:
President John DeGioia has sent an e-mail message to Georgetown faculty and students regarding Georgetown University’s four day closure due to the blizzard. In it, he thanks students and staff who maintained Georgetown through several blizzards and speaks to efforts to make up for lost days of class.
“Most especially, I would like to thank the members of our facilities, housekeeping and food service staffs, who have shown remarkable dedication in the face of serious inconvenience, discomfort and logistical challenges,” he wrote. “Many staff members have stayed on campus overnight and worked around the clock to make this possible, and we all owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.”
DeGioia continues, “I want you all to know that we are doing everything we can to get classes started again …. This will require some flexibility and patience from each of us as we develop creative solutions for this gap in our schedule and continue on with our academic work and other important projects.”You can read the full letter after the jump.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. With driving conditions safer than they were yesterday and roads clearer, Georgetown University has decided to open with liberal leave tomorrow. From preparedness.georgetown.edu:
CURRENT STATUS: CLOSED (effective for February 11, 2010) University Operating Status for Thursday, February 11, and Friday, February 12, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010 Georgetown University, Georgetown University Medical Center and Georgetown University School of Medicine will be open on Friday, February 12 with liberal leave leave in effect for faculty, staff and students.
Regularly scheduled Friday classes will be held in accordance with the liberal leave policy. Faculty should notify students if a class will not be held as scheduled. Students who are unable to attend class will be excused if they notify their instructor prior to their absence. In all cases, an individual’s safety should be a prime consideration when making decisions to attend scheduled events.
For tonight, GUTS buses and SafeRides are still not running, according to the University’s Twitter.
We have class on Monday, albeit on a liberal leave schedule. And if the Facebook group made in protest of the decision and comments section of our blog post are any indication, people are very, very pissed.
Many students are complaining that it’s unfair and that they already have plans for Monday. So Vox is curious—come Monday, what are you going to do?
Editor’s note: Embedded reporter Eric Pilch took the two videos in this post of Wednesday night’s massacre at Rose Park. The first is of GWU’s hordes advancing on the intrepid band of Hoyas, the second is of some of the action on the battlefield. If you got sick watching Cloverfield, you probably shouldn’t watch them.
Starting around 6 p.m., the Georgetown contingent of roughly 50 students began to assemble on the north side of Rose Park at 26th and O Streets, gathering on top of a hill that strategically overlooked the park. It was difficult to tell how many people from GWU had shown up when they advanced en masse from the other side of the park a few minutes later, but the ratio was at least 4:1 in GW’s favor.
In an e-mail that he has just sent to the student body, Provost James O’Donnell has announced that classes will be held on a liberal leave schedule President’s Day, Monday, February 15.
The University will make every effort to open on Friday, he said, and he has asked the Council of Associate Deans to offer a make-up day of class later in the semester. From his e-mail:
We will make every effort to be open as far as possible on Friday: there will be a separate announcement tomorrow, but watch the weather and the roads and assume that we will be trying hard to hold classes.
Classes *WILL* now be held on Monday, Presidents Day, with liberal leave for those who cannot attend, because after almost a week without classroom work, the need to get back in the routine is urgent. I have also asked the Council of Associate Deans, working with faculty leadership, to recommend one further make-up day later in the term. I hope to be able to announce that date next week, once we know for certain how much we have lost this week.
Update 8:12 p.m.: Shown above is Georgetown using Twitter to cancel President’s Day. For all of America. There’s already a Facebook group protesting this decision with 260367454 1,552?! members and counting: “Protect Our National Holiday! Say No To Monday Classes!!!”
“CURRENT STATUS: CLOSED (effective for February 10, 2010) Georgetown University is closed on Wednesday, February 10, 2010, and will remain closed on Thursday, February 11, 2010.”
Georgetown Provost Jim O’Donnell is ever diligent in his (rather unpopular) efforts to keep Georgetown despite the record snowfalls that have forced campus to close for three days in a row. In an e-mail he just sent to Georgetown faculty, he has provided a link to a website created by the Georgetown Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship that has information and suggestions about how to keep in touch with students—even hold classes—via the Internet.
“Make the Most of the Closure,” the website reads on its main page. While some of its suggestions are pretty basic—e-mail students to review what would have been covered in class—there are instructions on how to hold digital class using the electronic blackboard on Blackboard, how to arrange online quizzes and exams, how to use audio conferencing to hold remote office hours with students, or how to use it to hold class remotely.
In addition Diana Owen’s real-time blog class, the website reveals that other professors have been holding class, too: so far, it boasts the story of physics professor Earl Skelton, who has “held class” every session despite the snow over the last few days.
“It’s still snowing,” O’Donnell wrote in his e-mail, which he shared with the Voice. “We don’t yet know just how much of this week’s face-to-face instruction we will lose, but we’ve lost a lot already. We are focused on safety as first priority and academic progress a very close second.”
In the e-mail, he also says he hopes to have an announcement ready about “tomorrow’s plans” by early evening.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's weekly newsmagazine. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
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