UPDATED: March 8, 4:14 p.m.

For the second time in school history, Syracuse University canceled all classes due to snow on Monday.

Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina said he and Lou Marcoccia, executive vice president and chief financial officer, conferred last night and early Monday morning on whether or not to cancel classes.

‘When we were making the call, there was snow,’ Spina said. ‘We knew the snow was going to end sometime this morning. At 6:30, it still looked like another hour and a half to two hours of snow.’

The storm dropped a total of 13.4 inches of snow, said Dave Nicosia, representative for the Binghamton, N.Y., National Weather Service station and the Syracuse area. The last and only time classes were canceled for an entire day due to snow at SU was in March 1993, according to an article in The Daily Orange on Feb. 16, 2007, when 42 inches of snow fell. But the school has canceled only afternoon classes since – on Feb. 14, 2007, all classes after 12:45 p.m. were canceled, and on Feb. 25, 2010, all classes after 2 p.m. were canceled. So far, this has been the fourth snowiest season for Syracuse, with a total of 173.5 inches falling since the snow season began July 1, Nicosia said.

Although the snowfall wasn’t substantial, Spina said the university didn’t feel comfortable putting its 3,000 or 4,000 employees on the road in the morning to come to campus. 

‘We weren’t confident that they could get there safely, and we weren’t confident that we wouldn’t be disrupting the road-clearing operations that were under way,’ he said.

The university first announced that classes before 12:30 p.m. would be canceled and administrative staff wouldn’t have to report until 10 a.m. in an e-mail sent out to students just before 7 a.m. Monday.

But in an e-mail sent out to students just after 9 a.m., the university announced the cancellation of all Monday classes, including those at University College. Administrative staff members were not required to come in, although essential personnel were to report as normal if able to do so in a safe manner, according to the e-mail.

By late Monday morning, the snow had stopped and the sun was shining. Temperatures reached the low 30s during the day.

SU has a staff that receives input from those responsible for plowing roads and those who are in charge of other emergency services. The staff then reports to Spina and Marcoccia so they can make the final decision, Spina said.

The Syracuse Department of Public Works, which plows the city’s streets, could not be reached for comment.

Snowfall is typically easily dealt with in Syracuse, as the roads are plowed well and people are adjusted to the wintry conditions, Spina said. The university rarely closes because a majority of students live on campus or within walking distance, Spina said. 

Students are also paying a lot of money for their education, so the university wants to avoid canceling unless it’s absolutely necessary, Spina said.

‘Certainly, it’s not the biggest storm that we’ve had. But the timing made it very complex, recognizing that we have employees all over the county and even in other counties,’ Spina said. ‘It’s just sort of the right set of circumstances to make it a complex day.’

University policy states that 12 inches of snow accumulation with heavy snow falling continuously from 6:30 to 8:30 a.m. and a forecast accumulation of more than 18 inches may cause a delayed opening or cancellation of classes. Thirty-six or more inches of snow accumulating within a 24-hour period may also lead to canceled classes, according to the policy.

Campus life remained somewhat normal on Monday, with many services operating on limited schedules.

Campus Centro buses were operating as usual, but students were instructed to expect delays. The first floor desks at E.S. Bird Library were open in the Learning Commons, Reference, Laptop Loan and Access Service areas until 3 p.m., at which time the library closed. All six dining halls, including the Goldstein Student Center, remained open.

A visit from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was scheduled to speak in the Schine Student Center at 10:30 a.m. Monday, was canceled.

Student Association canceled its weekly Monday meeting and has yet to reschedule it.  

The storm caused the Department of Public Safety to see an increase in activity Monday, said Jenn Horvath, DPS public information officer. Officers providing student shuttle services reported being busier than usual early this morning when buses were running on a delayed schedule, Horvath said.

Four vehicle accidents occurred on campus Monday, Horvath said. DPS responded to accidents in the Stadium Lot, on South Campus at Small Road and by University Village Apartments, Horvath said. Another occurred at the corner of Comstock and Euclid avenues that the Syracuse Police Department responded to, Horvath said.

Two DPS cruisers and one SPD cruiser blocked off the 300 block of Comstock Avenue from Harrison Street to East Adams Street from 11:30 p.m. Monday into early Tuesday morning. Several cars were parked illegally on the wrong side of the street and were going to be ticketed and towed, said a SPD officer on the scene.

Many of the cars parked illegally were covered in snow, and snow had piled up to their windows. The SPD officer said the Syracuse Fire Department couldn’t travel down the portion of Comstock with the illegally parked cars and would tow cars to resolve the problem.

The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, which shares a campus with SU, did not cancel classes Monday, said Claire Dunn, communications director at ESF. Dunn said she was sure the administration considered canceling classes, but because road conditions appeared safe for students to travel on and forecasts indicated the weather would be fine during the day, it chose not to. Being a state institution, ESF is more reluctant than SU to close school, Dunn said. Dunn said she did not hear of any problems due to the weather concerning ESF on Monday.

The weather did affect other area institutions. In Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University closed at 4:30 a.m. and reopened at 11:45 a.m. Monday, with classes resuming at 12:20 p.m., according to an e-mail sent to students. Ithaca College also chose to delay classes because of the weather conditions, opening at 11:30 a.m., according to a notice on its website.

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A previous version of this article appeared on dailyorange.com on March 7.

Published on March 7, 2011 at 12:00 pm