Polar Vortex Triggers Travel Delays

Students were faced with difficult travel conditions caused by Winter Storm Hercules and a polar vortex while attempting to return to the College for the start of J-term, forcing instructors to make accommodations for those who were absent because of travel delays.

The storm, which battered the Midwest and Northeast from Jan. 1-3, has been cited for at least 16 deaths and complicated travel for several days thereafter. Illinois experienced up to 17 inches of snow, while New York was hit with anywhere from six to 11 inches, and parts of Massachusetts received almost two feet of snow.

According to a Fox News report, on Jan. 3 alone, almost 1,500 flights were cancelled due to Winter Storm Hercules. Such cancellations snarled the travel plans of students such as Colleen Harper ’14, a member of the Women’s Swimming and Diving team who spent 48 hours travelling from her home in Chicago to Middlebury in order to dive at the team’s meets at Bates and Colby on Jan. 4 and 5.

“My flight to Burlington [on Thursday] was cancelled, so I took another flight to Newark that was delayed, causing me to miss the last flights to Burlington until Sunday,” Harper said. “I ended up taking a train from Newark to New York and then on to Burlington, and then drove to Middlebury, arriving at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday morning after leaving Chicago at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday morning.”

Delays also forced some instructors to make accommodations for missing students during the first few days of classes. Philip B. Stewart and Sarah F. Cowles Stewart Professor of Chemistry Jeff Byers is currently teaching Organic Chemistry I, which meets five days a week for over five hours each day, putting students who miss even one class at a great disadvantage. Byers turned to new technologies to aid those who were unable to return to campus on time.

“Two students missed the first lecture, and I was recording my full lecture on a Smartboard, so they had full access to everything,” Byers wrote in an email. “They got caught up pretty much immediately.”

C.V. Starr Professor of Russian and East European Studies Tom Beyer, whose Beginning Russian course meets for three hours every day, also leveraged technology to keep an absent student up to speed in the class as travel troubles kept her at home.

“We used FaceTime to let her participate fully in our intensive language where she was able to view, listen and respond,” Beyer said. “In the past for reasons of weather and personal emergencies, I have also used Skype to stay connected with class members.”

Other professors opted for replacement or make-up class meetings. Sasha Whittle ’17, whose  flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was cancelled, missed the first class in her J-term course “Infectious Disease: Historical Epidemics, Current Dilemmas, and Emerging Problems.” She was not alone in her absence, however.

“About 15 people missed our first class, so the professors [Visiting Professors Andy Hale ’06 and Russell Johanson ’06] held a make-up lecture so we could catch up,” Whittle said.