Class Cancellation
It is the responsibility of the instructor to provide written instructions in each course to inform students of the procedures for learning, prior to class time, when a class has been cancelled in situations other than when the university is closed.
The notification procedures should be tested to determine their usefulness before an emergency arises. The procedures should work not only in response to overnight weather or events but also in response to weather or events that occur during the day.
Included in the procedures should be a notification to the main department office of any class cancellation. Instructors are expected to ensure that course content is not materially affected by any reduction in class hours. If inclement weather prevents a student from safely attending class, an instructor should provide the opportunity to make up work without penalty.
Faculty members should choose among the following or comparable procedures in determining their policy for informing students of class cancellation:
- For each course, the weather cancellation policy should be communicated to the students in a clear statement in the syllabus, a special handout, or the class web page.
- Faculty members may provide the telephone number(s) in the syllabus and record class information on their voice mail as an outgoing message regarding class cancellation.
- Email may be used by faculty members to provide information about class cancellation if all students will have access prior to class.
- Faculty web pages may be updated by faculty members to provide information about class cancellation if all students will have access prior to class.
- Home phones may be used to provide information about class cancellation, either with answering machine outgoing messages or in person.
- The main department office telephone number can be used to provide information about class meetings if someone is available to answer the telephone and the volume of calls regarding cancelled classes will not be such as to make access difficult or impossible.
- Some combination of the above may be necessary if all students cannot access the information in the same way.
- Faculty members should also notify students in the syllabus or in a prior class when it is known that a scheduled event means that the faculty member will be absent and no suitable alternative exists for holding the class.