Thomas Kinghorn has the authority to do something that all students wish they could do. As the vice president of Business Affairs, Kinghorn is the person who makes the recommendation to Ball State University President Jo Ann Gora to cancel classes.
Kinghorn made the recommendation to Gora to cancel classes on Tuesday, and he also helped make the decision to cancel all classes before 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
Kinghorn said numerous factors go into the decision.
"Information comes feeding into this decision from the grounds crew people who are working out in the weather conditions," he said.
Tony Proudfoot, associate vice president of Marketing and Communication, said although workers from Facilities Planning and Management were working hard to clear away snow, it was not as fast as the university had hoped.
"We had hoped to get the parking lots cleared and sidewalks cleared earlier, but overnight the snow came down and drifted more than we thought," Proudfoot said.
Kinghorn said this week's weather made him recall the blizzard of 1978, when classes were canceled for a couple of days.
"The last two days have been different than most all the snows in my memory," Kinghorn said. "The depth and wind velocity were two primary factors that were far different than has been the case in the past."
Proudfoot said everything was business as usual for the university, and everyone was rolling with the situation.
Kinghorn said classes after 5 p.m. were still held because of the importance of the learning process.
"It's very important to keep the classes open if at all possible," he said. "For a night class student, it's a full week of work during one of the night classes."
Some faculty members with night classes, however, have chosen to cancel their classes.
"There is so much variation among classes that there is no established formal process for faculty canceling class," Proudfoot said, "but they are expected to work with their department chair when that happens."
The university has no institutional makeup day for canceled classes, he said.
"The faculty's response is to teach a certain curriculum over a period of a semester," he said, "so in circumstances like these there is a certain latitude to enable them to redistribute that course work for that day across other days or to make it up in some other way."
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