Two record breaking snow-storms have hit our campus in the span of a month, and you’d think RWU could have upped their game this time around. I believe that the preparations now were incredibly lackluster.

All students and staff received an email from the campus Public Affairs discussing shuttle and travel bans, and the fact that we were going to receive 18-20 inches of snow. I usually don’t see that high of a number so I was definitely dreading this so much more. What really caught my eye was the mention of “Blizzard Survival Packs.” Should we really be calling them that?

These rations consisted of the same mass of tiny cereal packages and some orange and apple juice bottles. I’m not asking for full course meals, but this seems like a stretch to call it a “survival pack.” After I had dinner in Upper, I asked if there was any milk to grab with the dry cereal selection, because at least this makeshift depot had some during the last storm. There were none. On top of that, every last spoon was taken from Lower and there was no plan on restocking them.

I also had a major gripe with the previous storm. Many students like me did not have any option for dinner so I had to brave the ankle high snow and ice uphill to Commons just to have some leftover chicken from the previous night. Upper was reopened just for dinner, yet we had to stay inside? That logic did not make any sense to me. One of the top priorities in the Student Code of Conduct (which I can shockingly no longer find listed on the RWU site) is the bullet point about students not having snowball fights.

Please focus on figuring out a better plan for dinners without making loopholes rather than snowball fights causing liabilities for the campus itself. Someone getting hurt by a snowball is a student’s own fault, and that causing the loss of some money for the school is a bigger worry than planning our safety long-term.

Commons may be a last resort yet again because I don’t have a choice in my current situation. I’d prefer if we were informed of the best way to reach commons if we desperately had to, from the separate dorms. In a school of nearly 4,000 to 5,000 students, someone’s going to end up at the dining hall that was chosen to be kept open. 

Telling us to stay put and not throw snowballs while only giving us some fruit and dry cereal is not enough. For future storms, I hope that preparations and advice for students can be organized far better than what we have now, because this campus should be learning to adapt and clearly communicating their plans going forward.