Midweek Musings

In this Issue:

• What happens when a student has a class/lab during some fun activity taking place on campus?
• Health and Safety inspections in our residential communities

I am in a half-day meeting today, so this will be a quick Daily Deac.

What happens when a student has a class/lab during some fun activity taking place on campus?

At the start of the academic year, I typically get questions from family members who have read about something cool happening on campus that happens to conflict with their student’s class or lab. And in those cases – whether it is Wake the Demons or the first year field run for the ’28s, the Fall Involvement Fair, Puppies on the Quad, a food truck festival, Face to Face, etc. – families ask me if there is a way for students to skip a class or lab to go to the Fun Event.

My answer is that your Deac must talk to their faculty member about that. My guess is that faculty will want their students to fulfill their academic obligations before the fun stuff, so that would mean going to the scheduled class or lab vs the Fun Event. But ultimately that would be up to individual faculty members.

Unfortunately there are so many fun things that happen on campus, and while we try to spread them out to different days and times, there is no way to prevent time conflicts for a student body of 5,000. So in the event that your student has to miss something, chances are there will be another fun thing right around the corner that they can attend.

They may have to pick and choose what works with their schedules, but that will be a great life lesson in how to prioritize work and play.

Health and Safety inspections in our residential communities

This morning our residential students received this message about upcoming health and safety inspections. A couple of points from the message to note:

“Health and Safety Inspections will occur between Monday, September 9, and Thursday, September 12. All spaces will be entered for inspections and involve a visual overview of your room to ensure the absence of health and safety hazards/violations….

your community staff will close and lock your doors as they finish inspecting rooms. Be sure to take your keys and student ID with you as you leave your rooms during inspection week!“

I am adding my own personal mom-opinion here, so filter as you will: students should always be locking their doors when they leave their rooms. If their room is locked, no one else can get in there (and mess with or take their things), so it is good practice to lock their doors.