A snow day doesn't just mean snowball fights and sleeping in -- for many professors, it also implies extra work. With classes canceled on Monday as well as on Friday, Feb. 7, because of the snow, Penn professors are now facing the difficult task of catching up with their syllabi, while still managing to present all of the planned material to students. For students, then, this may mean makeup lectures and extra readings to catch up on all the time spent previously on hot cocoa and snowmen. Even though Monday's storm reached the Philadelphia area while professors were still trying to catch up on the material from the previous canceled classes, they are not worried about upcoming lectures. "For the first snow day, I was able to catch up," German Professor Simon Richter said. While obviously no one had included a blizzard in the syllabus, most faculty members have come up with ways of making up for the time lost -- either through eliminating some of the non-essential class material or scheduling extra sessions. "We are a week behind," Marketing Professor Mary Frances Luce said. But because her students meet in recitation sections on other days of the week, they will "have missed only half a week." Other professors have chosen more unconventional ways of presenting the material students are missing. For one, Richter has decided to record an additional lecture and post it on the Internet. "With this addition, everything should be OK," he said. However, there were professors who felt that the University's decision did not affect their schedule in a significant way. "I don't think I'm behind actually," Mathematics Professor Alexander Ulyanov said. "We're still doing fine." For professors in similar situations, problems have arisen only with regard to immediate planning. As for long-term projects, the only repercussions students will see will be the elimination of a few extra topics.
Despite the increased workload, most professors agreed with the University's decision to close on Monday. "It made sense," Chemical Engineering Professor David Graves said. Safety issues were the top concern for most of the faculty members. "I couldn't have made it in," Luce said. "I would have had real trouble." The class cancelation on Feb. 7, however, was less of a safety concern for professors than Monday's closure. "The previous one was a little closer call, but it still made sense," Graves said. Other professors were equally unsure over whether the precipitation on Feb. 7 really called for a complete shutdown of the University. "That didn't seem all that bad to me," Luce said. Nonetheless, most faculty members did not truly take the day off -- they still managed to get their day's work done from their homes. According to Richter, "that's what the computer and the Internet [are] for."
