Story by Jonah Chickering, Reporter
Photo courtesy of Jonah Chickering

The Aquinas College Athletic Department changed its policy on snow days and practices. Now, practices and games will all be canceled if campus is shut down due to weather. This includes both home and away games.

Assistant Athletic Director Logan Weis explained that previously, “What we had internally, as our own policy, was that if school was closed due to the weather on campus athletes could still go to practice. We didn’t want off campus athletes to have to travel through terrible weather to get to practice.”

The discussion of this policy was debated and considered for a period of time.“We went around and around on a lot of different things as far as how to handle it best,” Weis said. He explained that President Quinn and Provost Barrows supported the need to protect all students and faculty during dangerous weather conditions.

“They brought it full circle for us,” Weis said about the administrators.

This decision was made due to campus being closed for an unprecedented week during the polar vortex. Weis explained, “How often did we close? Previously we closed once,  maybe twice, a year. We closed eight days this year. We had never seen anything like this.”

Maria Maguire, a senior at Aquinas and a hockey player, said, “We couldn’t practice for a whole week. We felt very unprepared for our games.” The polar vortex affected all Aquinas faculty and students.

The polar vortex was something that employees within the Aquinas Athletic Department, with twenty years of experience, had never seen. “The circumstances were unique. I believe we came out of this with a solid policy and safer students,” Weis concluded.