This weekend, the Charlottesville community faced its second major snowstorm of the season, with about 10 inches of snow and ice accumulating on Grounds. Emergency and maintenance services across the state are always somewhat underprepared for major snowfalls, simply because Virginia is not home to frequent blizzards or treacherous ice storms - the rarity of such events would make a substantial investment in the necessary equipment an unwise use of resources. Saturday's storm produced about twice as much snow accumulation as originally was predicted, further complicating matters for local work crews.
For its part, University Services responded swiftly to the rapidly deteriorating conditions, calling in additional personnel Saturday to clear roadways and pedestrian walkways. University officials also redirected University Transit Service bus routes to ensure students could access dining halls and libraries across Grounds. To broadcast these route changes, the University sent an e-mail to senior residents and resident advisers, asking that the information be passed along to students, Assoc. Dean of Students Bill Ashby said.
Saturday's events highlight an ongoing and important challenge for both University administrators and public officials nationwide - how to best communicate critical information during an emergency or crisis response situation. Fortunately, the weekend's snowstorm was not particularly calamitous and did not warrant any updates via the U.Va. Alerts program, a response system that sends registered students, faculty and staff a text message notification about any imminent threats to public safety.
Of course, events like snowstorms often leave administrators in a puzzling situation. Clearly, significant logistical changes, such as, rerouting buses need to be communicated to the student body as efficiently as possible. Nevertheless, most snowfalls hardly constitute genuine crises, and the University is right to be cautious about spamming students with needless text messages or e-mails. It is these situations that fall in the middle of the spectrum - those events that are neither trivial nor imminently threatening - that are most difficult for which to find the appropriate means of communication with students.
Students living off Grounds can presumably be notified of route changes via UTS 411, a listserv that students can sign up for to receive e-mail updates of service changes and other important announcements. If administrators found Saturday's decisions to be pertinent enough to forward to Resident Staff, they should have sent the information to the entire University community. It is not safe to assume that all of the students who take the bus are signed up for these UTS 411 updates or that students will hear through word of mouth. Moreover, limiting these updates to RAs prevents students living off Grounds from receiving such updates.
University-wide e-mails certainly can be used for specific, immediate concerns arise regarding students' well-being; the administration is proactive in sending general safety reminders during both criminal investigations and high-risk times of the year, such as Halloween. The University is prudent to control the influx of such e-mails so that they do not seem too frequent and repetitive. Yet when an event freezes activity across Grounds, an explanation of how the University plans on altering its daily schedule would be well-received. Such a notification, though referring to a situation neither dire nor life-threatening, would serve to benefit the University community and ensure no one is left out in the cold.
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