should universities/colleges close during extreme weather?

Question

I live in Chicago and we had a blizzard recently. my university has a lot of commuters who either drive or use public transport. Commuting time ranges from less than an hour to 2 hours. my university decided to not close and upset a lot of commuters.          It's up to the commuters to not come to class but then they risk missing assignments, notes and/or penalized for participation. teachers can decide to cancel classes. For those whose roads were cleared th3 commute wasn't that bad but not everyone had their roads cleared in time for them to leave. should universities just cancel?

Answer

The local college I attended here closed on occasion in bad weather. Guessing that’s just based on school policy.

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Depends on the infrastructure in the city. In Minneapolis, we'd close basically only for a nuclear Holocaust. We've been open in -25 degree weather, we've been open for blizzards... but that's because our city has the means to deal with it. It's up to the discretion of the admin and professors, ultimately. I do feel like they shouldn't count kids as absent those days, if attendence counts toward your grade.

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Yeah... Alaska doesn’t close for shit. 😂

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Classes yesterday or today? 
It’s fucking gross out now, but the roads are drivable, and transit is running. 
Yesterday no one should have been out until after the extreme weather alert ended. It’s wrong if your school didn’t follow city requests not to go out unless absolutely necessary.

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Yes. My college (in Michigan) closed Friday for a snow day. Last year, it closed on a day we had finals because the roads were so terrible. Even my husbands job shut down last week. On a good day, it takes me an hour and a half to get to my campus, I appreciate them closing for inclement weather. My husband used to get hurricane days from school. Weather is no joke. Not everyone has the luxury of a vehicle also, imagine waiting for a bus in negative degree weather.

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I had never been in a extreme weather situation, but there has been a few strikes among Subway or bus public workers. I take two hours to get to school, I get a bus and two trains. Lots of students commute from other cities
My school decided to not close, so there was still classes. But students who couldn't come that day due to the strike (they make the city become hell), they could retake any assignments or tests done that day.

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I live in Michigan. We get hit yesterday. Getting more snow today and tomorrow. All the schools and colleges closed yesterday. Which is what they should have done. No one should have to be out in bad wether like that.

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Where I live bad weather is normal. We’d be closed close to a couple months of the year if the school shit down due to icy roads or a ton of snow or because there were cold weather warnings every time it happened we’d lose half our semester and that’s just a waste of my money. However, the school has closed on very rare occasions and it’s only when the city buses stop running. Most people bus/walk to school so they’re not driving. And even those that do drive could take the bus if needed. If the weather is really bad were someone lives and they’re out of the city and cant catch a bus then they’re allowed to call their prof and ask to move a lab/test/etc if needed. 
If the city buses aren’t working due to weather then yes the schools should close. But if people are still expected to go to work and the rest of the city is open then a university shouldn’t just shut down. The only time I’d say there’s an exception is if the school cannot open due to snow- at my undergrad if the snow couldn’t be cleared from the residence, cafeteria and school buildings by 7:30am (classes started at 8am) then it’s close till 12pm or for the whole day depending even if the town was still open. But that was because the snow often got too bad that you couldn’t actually open the doors (or see out of them on one occasion) since the snow was so bad.

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If that were to happen, then everywhere should close but that just wouldn't be reasonable. People have to risk their lives to drive to work or in my case, risk their life to deliver my sandwich 😂 (which I didn't order btw) For real tho, it really depends on the area. Like where I live everyone is used to driving on snow and ice. I can understand other places where it's rare, that they close down the whole town.

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I live in Milwaukee and the bigger schools for sure closed. UWM and MATC both are huge commuter schools so they both were closed because of the roads. It’s not safe for people to be out unless they absolutely have to. Sorry but a chem lab is not a reason to get into an accident and schools shouldn’t think they’re that important. It can be made up later if need be.