Adelphi closed early on September 17 and will do so again on September 26 for the Jewish holidays. But from past experience I've found that many students and faculty puzzle over what to do if their class begins before closing time but does not end until after it.

Similarly, last February 5th, when the sudden closing for Winter Weather to take effect at 3pm was first announced by voice mail and e-mail at 2:40pm, several students reported that their professors were instructed to immediately stop their lectures and dismiss students. With the activity hour (1:00-2:15) having just concluded twenty-five minutes earlier, I believe that starting the closing at 1pm would have been a more organized and more professional way to handle the emerging weather conditions that day.

The official rule for both holiday and weather closings is that classes that start before 3pm (may vary for weather closings) are to conclude at the scheduled time but courses scheduled to start after 3pm are deferred to the designated make-up date. For classes that fit the standard scheduling grid (i.e. Monday and Wednesday 2:25-3:40 or Tuesday and Thursday 1:40-2:55), this rule works reasonably well if students and faculty understand and adhere to it.

However, laboratory and seminar courses which meet for longer periods are severely affected by a closing since holding a 1-6 pm lab class until 6 pm ruins the idea of closing before sundown and setting 3 pm as the closing time. A 3:05-4:20 class does not meet because it is too late but a 1-6pm class stays for the full time. With the increased diversity of meeting patterns in the Adelphi schedule over the past decade, the specifics of the rule regarding a 3 pm closing must be refined.

For these reasons, I believe that the 3 pm standard closing time for bad weather and the eve of Jewish holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover) should be changed to 1 pm. This closing time would allow the school day to end when most people are about to have lunch or proceed to their clubs, a far more reasonable solution than restarting the school day for less than an hour at 2:25 on Mondays and Wednesdays. It also allows the growing resident population of Adelphi to return home to their families in a more timely fashion for family dinners.

In closing, I'd like to note that my non-Jewish friends will vouch for the fact that I vehemently oppose the Easter Monday school opening at Adelphi because it rushes many of them from their Easter dinners, but that issue will be left alone, for now.