Treacherous Conditions Leave UMBC Students Frustrated Once Again

 

Icy conditions and a lack of preparedness have UMBC students questioning yet again the value that campus administrators place on student safety.

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What began as rain Sunday night quickly froze to ice as the temperature continued to drop into the low teens. Shifting from rain to snow, the layers of ice on the ground became covered in four to six inches of snow, depending on the area. This prompted administrators to close campus Monday, March 3, which came at little surprise as conditions remained dangerous throughout the day. Temperatures continued to drop into Monday night, nearing record lows of one degree in the Baltimore region.

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However, on Monday night, UMBC students received an email from Lyne Schaefer, the vice president for finance and administration at UMBC, informing them that not only would UMBC be open Tuesday, but that UMBC lacked the adequate materials to properly clear campus pathways and parking lots.“Due to lack of supply… UMBC will not be able to replenish our [salt] supply to our regular levels” said Lynne Schaefer, vice president for administration and finance. “We anticipate patches of snow and icy areas sporadically across campus. Please do your best to come prepared for winter conditions, and please take great care as you navigate campus…”

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Many students found this email to be an acknowledgement of extremely dangerous conditions with little offer of any remedy, and prompted some to create discussion board threads voicing their complaints.

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“If people get injured all the time during a ‘fully salt stocked’ snow storm, this is going to be a disaster,” commented Marianna Hurwitz on the myUMBC discussion board.

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Other commenters argued that if the UMBC administration is aware of the dangerous conditions, that the campus should be closed. Monday night, UMBC announced a delay for Tuesday, opening the campus at 10 a.m.

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This delay, however, was also met with backlash. “A delay would do nothing, the temperature is supposed to remain in the single digits until noon,” said David Beech. With no salt to melt the snow and ice, students were left hoping that the sun would be enough to clear the pathways.

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As students began to arrive on campus, they found that almost every pathway was covered in layers of ice and trampled snow. “It’s an ice rink. I almost slipped numerous times and I’ve got boots on,” said David Adamsen on the myUMBC discussion board in response to questions about conditions on campus. This gave little hope to commuters who hadn’t yet arrived at school, as they now knew that conditions were just as bad as people had anticipated. “I slipped nine times on the way to my class today and fell once after class” said Michelle Czarnecki on the discussion board.

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While some the administration has previously told students that if they cannot make it to campus safely, to not come to school, the fact of the matter is that it is not always that simple. Often, if campus is open, professors will try to hold class, and if students are absent many professors will dock points. This gives students the feeling that if school is open, they need to be there, sacrificing their safety and the safety of others.

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“In a case like this, you’d be penalized for missing class, even though you’re at risk for falling, or in my case actually killing someone,” said Kaytee Nichols, a junior in the arts program at UMBC. Nichols is eight months pregnant. “The risk just isn’t worth it,” she said. She didn’t have classes on Tuesdays so she was able to avoid campus. “I would be reluctant to miss class unless I really had to, but getting from the garage to the Fine Arts building is no joke, even when they claim that they have salted. I probably wouldn’t have come yesterday considering the things that I was reading about campus.”

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Students with disabilities also face challenges navigating icy conditions. Kristina Bowman, a student a UMBC, stated on the discussion board that she “just spent the past 25 minutes helping a nice young man in a wheelchair navigate from the Walker Ave Apartments to the Fine Arts Building.” She said she “saw him struggling and… offered to help immediately because there was no way he could have safely arrived to his class on his own…”

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The problem with UMBC’s handling of this situation lies in the fact that they knew that campus was going to be dangerous, and the only thing that they did was to tell students to be careful. The delay offered little remedy to the situation as it wasn’t warm enough to melt the snow and ice. UMBC’s lack of consideration for student and faculty safety is something to be alarmed about, as this isn’t the first time that UMBC has had less than adequate preparation for a snowstorm, nor the first time that campus has remained open while sheets of ice still cover the ground.

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