Administration Freezes Class Tomorrow

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Calvin Falk

Washington Square Park and 5th Avenue in the snow. New York expects to see heavy snow showers Wednesday night.

Coco Wang, Deputy News Editor

There is snow school tomorrow — NYU spokesperson John Beckman just confirmed that NYU will not be open, overturning the email sent by NYU Public Safety earlier in the afternoon. New York City Public Schools announced that they will close tomorrow, prompting the university to also cancel classes.

“We typically act in line with the public school system,” Beckman said. “NYU will be closed tomorrow, and classes will be cancelled.”

According to a public alert, a blizzard will blanket the city, and the surrounding area from midnight to 6 p.m. tomorrow. It will be accompanied by eight to 12 inches of heavy snow. The alert said that temperatures will drop to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and visibility will be one-quarter mile or less at times.

Vice President of Global Campus Safety Marlon Lynch said in the earlier email that all classes, activities and operations — except the NYU Langone Medical Center, which makes its own announcements about snow-related closings — would not be cancelled, though students’ attendance would be up to their own discretion.

Regardless of these guidelines or the University’s decision to be open, you should always be guided by good judgment: if you feel you really cannot travel to campus safely, you should stay home — be in touch with your professor or supervisor, and work out a common-sense approach about how to handle the missed day,” the email said.

Though students expressed excitement about not needing to attend class, other students who hail from warmer areas anticipate the storm more than they anticipate cancelled classes. CAS freshman Phillip You said he was excited just to experience the snow.

“I come from the Southern China, so I haven’t experienced heavy snow yet,” You said. “I’m looking forward to seeing some real storm. Snow may bring troubles to some activities, but it’ll be really fascinating to see the beautiful scene around Washington Square Park.”

But other students such as CAS freshman Janice Feng are simply looking forward to taking a breather from their already stressful semesters — she has two classes on Thursdays.

Tomorrow, I have Elementary Korean II and International Writing Workshop I,” Feng said. “It’s been a stressful week, and I am glad I can finally have a day without setting the alarm. I will stay at my dorm, do my work and maybe watch few episodes [of TV] on Netflix.”

Beckman said the university usually prefers to continue classes if possible to minimize the influence weather has on the college academic schedule.

“Generally speaking, if we can carry on with classes, we do,” Beckman said. ”We know everybody loves a snow day, but NYU is reluctant to have snow days for the most straightforward of reasons: it’s very hard to make up a missed day in a college academic schedule, and that’s a real problem when we expect students to absorb so much material over the course of a semester.”

Email Coco Wang at [email protected].