For human biology and psychology freshman Jessica Jary, going to class Tuesday was not worth it if it meant walking into potential tornado weather.
Jary is not the only student who missed class Tuesday because of the tornado warning, which lasted from 11:23 a.m. to noon Tuesday according to the National Weather Service. MSU Alert, the emergency alert system for MSU, sent out an e-mail to all students and staff warning everyone to seek shelter during the tornado warning.
Jary, along with the other residents in her dormitory, sat in the basement until the warning was over. Students across campus migrated down into basements to protect themselves from the potential storm.
Zachary Burton, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, said although he didn’t have a class today, he saw a colleague moving students from his lecture down into the basement.
He said if he had a class, he wouldn’t have continued class after the warning if it seemed appropriate. He said he doesn’t take attendance and it would be hard to tell whether people left during the warning.
“I would just go down (to the basement) and follow the safety regulations,” Burton said.
University spokesman Jason Cody said there is no blanket attendance policy at MSU. According to the Office of the Registrar, an attendance policy is left up to the instructor of a course and must be established at the beginning of the semester.
“I would think a student wouldn’t be penalized for not walking to class if there was a warning out there like that,” Cody said.
For some professors, such as Tracy Dobson, a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, the weather advisory didn’t interrupt her class’ plans. Dobson’s class meets in the basement of the Natural Resources Building. She said she didn’t hear the warning, but thought she might have if she had been on the first floor.
“I was just putting in a video and I heard this funny noise, and nobody was moving in the hall,” she said.
Her class watched the video until a student with a laptop told her of the weather warning. She said her students stuck around until the warning was over, and she saw other classes congregating in the basement.
For Dobson, a student not attending class because of a weather warning would be a legitimate reason.
“I think it would be an unacceptable stance if there was a tornado warning and a student would be penalized,” she said.
Students such as Jary didn’t want to take the risk of being caught in some stormy weather.
“I’m not going to walk there when I didn’t know if there was going to be another (warning),” Jary said. “I figured it wasn’t worth it to risk walking to class in the bad weather.”
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