I want you all to imagine for a moment, a world where we have drones, phones that connect us to the other side of the world, fully electric cars (thanks, Elon Musk), and the ability to stream endless amounts of TV on Netflix. What do you know, it’s Nov. 12, 2018 and we have all of those things. But, you know what we don’t have? A snow day.

I woke up this morning after hoping all night long that the Cowboys would win and that school would be canceled — that the university wouldn’t make me try to drive to school on snow and ice.

I checked Twitter, my group text, professors emails, etc., and received nothing. Is it really that hard to send out a message in the ever-annoying “Shocker Blast” or a simple tweet on university social media that we do or do not have school?

Wichita State canceled school last year for a “cold day.” That’s right, we expected snow and really cold weather, but all we got was the extremely cold weather. My opinion, the university canceled school last year so early that when the snow didn’t come, they were like “Eh, well it’s already canceled, so we’ll say it’s from cold weather.”

But, when there’s snow and ice on the ground this year mixed with a 20-degree temperature, it’s perfectly safe.

I’m from Texas, a fact I will always bring up whenever I can, but I’ve never seen people less prepared than this. In the Dallas/Fort Worth area, it feels like we only have two ice trucks for the entire Metroplex. We don’t even have full salt for the roads — just a sodium chloride mix.

As a friend of mine would say, “We use all of our salt for our food while others use it for their roads.” But we don’t deny that we’re bad at clearing the roads… We just cancel school when it’s not safe.

WSU had all night to prepare for the snow, but when I drove to campus this morning (before I turned around and drove right back home), the streets were still covered in ice and snow with a little sand over top of it. That’s not “safe” for your students to drive in, nor is it remotely acceptable to have class when it’s expected to stay below 30 degrees all day, adding to the already large amount of ice on the roads.

Professors, while I greatly appreciate your dedication to teaching us (most days), you don’t have to have class when the weather is this bad. If your boss or the university gets mad at you for canceling class for your safety or mine, send us an email at [email protected]. We’d be glad to interview you.