Cancelled classes disrupt routines
Classes at Saddleback College, Irvine Valley and ATEP have been disrupted due the decision to close the colleges. The shutdown was made official Oct. 25 at 10:30 a.m. by district chancellor Raghu Mathur.
Adding to the distress caused by fires and poor air quality throughout the county, students and faculty alike had the course of their classes altered.
Students like Y Leho are suffering the consequences.
“Because we didn’t have school on Friday, my math test got postponed to Wednesday,” said Leho, 19, biology. “I also had a biology test moved to Tuesday and I already had a humanities test this week. I now have four tests this week.”
Other students, like Alicia Dimas hope for professors’ understanding.
“I didn’t come [to school] all last week, because I heard it got evacuated,” said Dimas, 26, psychology. “I want my teachers to cut me some slack. We’ll see about that tomorrow.”
Several events were forced to cancel and/or be rescheduled. This was the case with the Inter-Club Council.
“We had to cancel our next Club Rush due to the bad air quality,” said ICC Director of Events Justin Santiago. “We postponed it until next Tuesday in the Village Quad.”
The early termination of last week’s classes also affected the Humanities Hour event sponsored by Liberal Arts & Learning resources, Cross-Cultural Studies and the Associated Student Government. Forensic anthropologist Clea Koff was to present her book “The Bone Woman.”
The Transfer Center was also deeply affected by the unhealthy conditions created by the Santiago Canyon fire.
“Many representatives were only scheduled to come for our Transfer Day and they weren’t able to,” said Jennifer Rachman, transfer counselor. “The turnout for our biggest event of the year was a lot lower than expected.”
Transfer Center Coordinator Miki Mikolajczak agreed, pointing out that Chapman University and the University of California, Davis were among those who failed to show up.
“Not only the San Diego schools couldn’t come because of Interstate 5 being closed,” Mikolajczkak said. “Workshops like the one from UCLA had less than half of the students who signed up.”
The Career Center was forced to cancel its Career Cruising workshops scheduled for Oct. 25 at 5 p.m.
“This was a workshop that we did offer bust unfortunately had to cancel,” said Career Services technician Mike Engels. “A lot of students come and do career exploration through this workshop.”