Thursday, December 10, 2009

Budgeting

Every college spends lots of money everyday on just about everything. In some ways most of them would like to find new ways to save a buck, for some money may not be the issue and its something they don't have to worry about. But most likely, they would want to hold on to as much money as they can just to be able to add to their budget.

For the colleges that have to deal with snow every year, there may be a good way for them to save money. A way that they can save money is to cancel classes on those snow days when it is too dangerous to be on the road commuting from home to the campus. There are a few things that might help them save money, but there is a chance that this kind of thing wont have any effect on these colleges budgets.

One thing might be is that they wont have to use up as much energy with classes being cancelled rather than them going on. Lights wont have to be turned on because those classrooms wont be in use and there is no need for them to be on. Another thing that may help and most likely may not change is the heating of the classrooms. If they wont be in use then there is no reason for the heat to be turned up to a certain temp to keep the room heated enough for it to be bearable to have class. There is a good chance that this wont affect the budget cost but it is a possibility. These are a couple things that might help out budget costs.

Now a reason that it wont save any money is because of the faculty who get administrative leave. The faculty workers will more than likely get paid just like any other work day if they were to get a snow day. It just depends on how things are handled in that area. There could be many other things that might help out the colleges budget, but this may be some of the more major things that could help.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Combining

Im sure that there are many college students who wish that they could have just one more snow day. I believe that colleges should cancel classes when the districts close because of the weather. This is mainly for those who have to travel to get to their class. I am one of those who has to travel to the campus when the weather is bad and i only drive about 5 miles to the campus. Imagine those who have to drive farther to make it to class either to teach or learn.


I think that if NJC was to change this policy it would keep the students and instructors more safe on days when the weather is bad, because they wouldnt have to rush into town to make it to class on time. This could be a good thing for the high school students too, because they travel from the high school to the college for classes. If the high school was cancelled and they still had their college class, they would have to travel from home to the college just for that one class. To me, that isnt worth it. Most likely the teacher may have cancelled class for that day but it depends on the instructor. I just believe that it would cause less problems for everyone if this was to happen.


In a interview that i just recently had was with a person that has been at NJC for over 10 years. This person thought this would be a good change for many reasons. This person works with many faculty that live out of town and have a ways to travel to get to the college and it would be better for them if they wouldnt have to put their lives in danger to make it into town.

A change that this person wanted to make to this problem was to have the same protocol as the school districts do because many of those faculty workers would have to find some sort of childcare for their children which could be hard to do especially if they live in a different town. A negative reason for this change could be for the students that live on campus. Some years ago, classes were cancelled and the students in the dorms had some free time on their hands and many of them decided to have some fun and trash the dorms. They caused quite a lot of damage which is a good reason has to why classes havent been cancelled since then.

Now there are many other colleges out there who are either going through the same problem or have already been through it. Yale University had this problem back in 2007 when someone posted on the website that all classes had been cancelled because of the weather when it was a fake. After this had happened, many started to wonder how come this type of thing couldnt happen.

Many of the instructors werent to fond of this because they thought that if students could go and play out in the snow on their day off, they could make it too class, so most of them still held classes. The college found that its better to have the students in class because there was an incident where a sophmore jumped out a second story dorm window to jump into a drift and ended up in the hospital with a messed up back. Thats a chance that many colleges dont want to take and with any type of vandalism that goes on in the dorms.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Snow Cancellation

1. There are many different groups that can be effected by the change of the snow cancellations. One group could be the instructors, they need to know about this because some of them also drive in from a distance and they need to know whether they should show up to teach class. It may be a waste of time for them because they would have traveled in from a different town when they didnt need to,

2. Another group that can be effected by this is the high school students that travel from the high school to the college. More than likely if college classes were cancelled, so would the high school but if something was to happen they would need to know about it so that they wouldnt have to drive over and find out there wasnt any class, especially those that drive in from Merino, Caliche and other schools.

3. Students who live in the halls and dorms would also need to know about the cancellation of classes. If they were to look and see that classes were cancelled they wouldnt have to get ready and go out in the cold to find out they didnt have class. More than likely though, someone would notify them in the cancellation of their class.

4. The last group that could be effected by this is the off-campus students. Many travel from out of town or on the other side of town, and would need to be notified just like the instructors would. They would be putting themselves through danger with the icy roads just to make it to class in time. If they were to find out about class being cancelled, it would be very frustrating and you would have to drive back home and you would be on the icy roads once again.