Emergency Information

Weekend Inclement Weather Policy

Winthrop University maintains a centralized process for determining when to close the entire campus because of inclement weather. If we do close entirely on a weekend day, a typical all campus notification is sent by email and our other notification mechanisms.

However, when the degree and duration of inclement weather is uncertain on weekends, decentralized authority prevails if no central decision is reached to close the entire campus and cancel all events. In these circumstances, program coordinators have the right to decide to cancel or postpone an event or class scheduled on a weekend day. This can happen as long as the decision is made by the appropriate person in the program’s administrative chain-of-command. This pertains especially when a specialized program offering or event might be able to take place sometime during a partially inclement day.

Illustrative examples include when a passing morning freezing rain will pass by the time an athletic event is scheduled to occur mid-afternoon. Athletics maintains a web site that has up-to-date information on game schedules. On the other hand for the same passing freezing rain, the Director of the EMBA program, after receiving approval from the Dean of the College of Business, may decide to cancel or postpone the weekend EMBA program since students come from a wide radius to campus. The EMBA program has an email distribution list and/or telephone tree it uses to notify enrolled students.

When appropriate, the University can put any program cancellation notice on the 2222 alert line.