If you are lucky enough to be a student who doesn't have any 8 a.m. classes, then you probably got a few extra hours of sleep Wednesday when Ball State University decided to cancel classes.
If you are a university employee or you take an early class, though, you weren't so lucky.
That's because the administration did not alert the university that classes were canceled until after 8:30 a.m.
Students in 8 a.m. classes had already made the trek to campus, braving streets and sidewalks covered with more than a foot of snow.
Ball State employees, too, were required to come. While professors didn't need to be on campus unless they had to work, office workers, Dining employees and many others were called upon to keep campus running.
The administration's eventual decision to cancel classes actually still required a lot of people to show up at Ball State.
Presumably, the university's goal when canceling class is to ensure the safety of those who might be endangered by a trip through snowy Muncie.
The delay in Wednesday's cancellation and the requirement of so many people to still come to campus, though, seems to indicate that safety was not as much of a priority as it should have been.
Weather conditions did continue to worsen throughout the morning, meaning Ball State was slow to issue the cancellation because it thought we could stick it out.
Snow predictions had been high for Wednesday, though, and local public school corporations were able to declare a snow day hours before Ball State.
Beyond that, the expectation that employees and faculty come to campus despite the bad road conditions is out of line.
These workers are more likely to live even farther from campus than most students who live in residence halls and off-campus housing around Ball State. Employees had more of a fight ahead of them when they set out early Wednesday.
The university obviously needs certain services, such as Dining, to continue no matter what the weather. Office workers and similar employees, though, should have gotten the same break as students.
We all deserve to be treated with the same care in dangerous situations.
A certain amount of hesitation to cancel classes is expected because students and faculty need to be present for important reasons like education and research.
Nothing is more important than the safety of Ball State students and employees, though.
The university, if anyone, should recognize that.
The cancellation decision lacked logic and seems to have been made on the fly. Classes have been canceled in past years in the middle of the day at times, and they haven't been canceled when Muncie was heavily covered with ice.
In the future, defined protocol for canceling classes would help prevent such problems.
Nasty winter weather is likely to continue for weeks. Everyone is at a much higher risk for danger during this season.
Ball State officials need to remedy this issue now before they end up regretting it.
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