Miami Student

Issue date: 2/16/07 Section: Front Page

Media Credit: Michael Pickering An Oxford resident tries to dig out his car after snow and ice blanket the town.

While most students enjoyed the cancellation of late afternoon classes Tuesday because of the inclement weather, the days were not so relaxing for the grounds crew at Miami University.

Tony Withrow, a mechanic in the maintenance department of physical facilities at the Oxford campus, said that the downpour of snow made scheduling workers difficult.

"This is a complicated (process), you have to be here to believe it," Withrow said. "We've had guys who've been here for three days - I've gotten two hours of sleep in the last 48 hrs. We have people constantly calling and asking 'can you come pull us out (of the snow).' We're doing the best we can."

For the first time since January 1999, Miami University's Oxford campus closed down while classes were in session.

The early closure Feb. 13 and the late opening Feb. 14 are highly unusual for Miami's Oxford campus, according to Richard Little, director of university communications.

"I can't remember a time when we closed twice in one year," Little said.

The Oxford campus was closed at 4 p.m. Tuesday, while the Hamilton and Middletown branch campuses were closed for the whole day. Wednesday, the Oxford campus opened at 10 a.m. while the two branch campuses were closed.

Jan Toennisson, director of public affairs at the Middletown campus, said that while she couldn't remember the exact date of the last closure for the Middletown campus, she knew that the week's closures were out

of the ordinary.

"I've been here seven years and the only other time I can remember (closing down) is in December 2005, right before Christmas - everybody was on break and it was just the staff," Toennisson said. "I can't remember another time; it's very rare. A lot of times we'll delay (classes) for a couple

hours … then we hope that the roads will be more passable

by then."

Little, President David Hodge, Provost Jeffrey Herbst and Vice President of Finance Richard Norman meet with the two deans of the branch campuses to make decisions regarding school closures, according to Little.

The group takes into account the forecast for the upcoming hours, the current weather conditions and especially focuses on the ice conditions in southwest Ohio, according to Little.

Continued...

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