“It’s just too much,” said Brad Ketchup, associate professor in the college of osteopathic medicine.
Ketchup is one of about 50 professors at NSU who is petitioning what seems to be a very controversial cause: they want hurricanes to be canceled.
After Hurricane Irma ravaged the Caribbean and South Florida, and with Maria following not too far behind, professors have had to scramble to figure out how to proceed with their classes.
“My students didn’t read the last three chapters because they didn’t have any light,” Tootsie Tight, philosophy professor, said, “I’m obviously going to have to push it back. But then what about everything else we have planned?”
Surprisingly, students don’t seem as upset about the change. One of Tight’s students said “sweet” when he heard about his two-week extension.
The petition gathered by the faculty isn’t a call to President Hanbury, but rather an open letter to the government. The petition states:
“Hurricanes have proven an insufficient use of time as they cause too much distress, death and detours in the academic arena. They impact the health and well-being of entire communities. On even the smallest scale they cause an inconvenience to those who work to educate the young adults that make up this great nation. For that reason, we plead — please cancel all upcoming hurricanes.”
Ketchup said that he’s hopeful that faculty at universities around the nation and even the globe will follow suit and release similar statements. But not all of NSU faculty feels that the petition is beneficial.
“Look, people died,” said Greg Sanity, “I think that you can push back an assignment and not put out a petition that doesn’t make any sense.”
Sanity said he hopes that people will come to their senses and realize that hurricanes aren’t over. For the time being, NSU is keeping a close eye on the Atlantic.
