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Volume 64 No. 38
BRAVING
THE STORM
UB students discuss impact of massive snowstorm SARA DINATALE & AMANDA LOW EDITOR IN CHIEF AND SENIOR NEWS EDITOR
The last week has been more than trying for some Western New Yorkers as people in the area’s Southtowns were barricaded in their homes for days, snow engulfing their driveways, cars and homes, leaving them trapped inside. At least 12 people died directly from the area’s historic lake effect snowstorm. The National Guard rolled in to rescue those most affected. Driving bans in South Buffalo weren’t lifted until Sunday. Students were unable to make it to classes Tuesday and Wednesday under various driving bans – the school didn’t shut down until Thursday, a decision many students felt came too late. Mother Nature dumped more than 7 feet of snow in some parts of the greater Buffalo area. By Sunday, the storm was gone with its traces impossible to miss. Now, people are starting to trade their shovels in for umbrellas, as the area’s massive mounds of snow begin to melt, and rain and potential flooding moves in.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ANTHONY QUINTANO (LEFT), JOHN CARREL (MIDDLE), AND CHAD COOPER (RIGHT), PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JENNA BOWER
But UB was faced with the decision to close or not close throughout the week. Amherst was relatively unaffected the storm, which made other parts of the area look like a tsunami of snow had consumed vehicles and homes – especially in areas like Hamburg, South Buffalo, Lancaster, West Seneca, East Aurora and Orchard Park. SUNY Buffalo State, Canisius, Daemen and D’Youville, among other local colleges, were closed Wednesday, some even Tuesday – UB didn’t add itself to the list right away, which left many questioning how UB makes its decisions. The university did tell students to use their “best judgement” in deciding whether to come to campus in online alerts. One student was so fed up UB didn’t just close he started an online petition that reached more than 1,200 signatures. Jason Fialkowski, a senior computer science major, asked officials to close the campus “until the surrounding area is removed from its status as a ‘state of emergency,’” according to the web posting. “I’m glad they made the decision, but disappointed that it took so much community pressure for them to do it,” Fialkowski said. UB Chief of Police Gerald Schoenle said as the storm “intensified and lengthened in duration throughout the region” it became necessary to cancel classes.
Publishing textbooks can mean big money for professors
“While not everyone on our emergency oversight team was aware of this petition, during an emergency situation such as this input from those affected by an incident is always valuable and always informs decision-making,” Schoenle said in an email. Frustrated commuters Molly Deacon, a third-year law student, said she spent Tuesday night nervously awaiting an email from her professor about a midterm. She was stuck in Cheektowaga facing a driving ban. She said law students are required to disclose any traffic violations – which would be issued if she were caught driving during the ban – to become licensed attorneys. For the days when school was not canceled, she said she felt like she was “being asked to choose between accruing traffic tickets or taking absences.” She was thankful her professor turned the midterm into a take-home exam. “Individual professors have been accommodating, but when we miss material in class, we’re at a disadvantage for finals based on where we live,” she said. Some students said professors weren’t as understanding. Chelsie Khoury, a junior political science major, said her professor expected her to find a way to get to campus for an exam Friday – before UB canceled classes, which was verified in an email obtained by The Spectrum.
EMMA JANICKI
ER BO W A N N JE BY N IG ES D
CASH FOR BOOKS
SEE STORM, PAGE 2
Professors assign texts they’ve written, students wonder if it’s ethical
SENIOR FEATURES EDITOR
When she was a freshman, Emily Malkowski, a sophomore communication major, didn’t find it unusual to pay her professor $40 in cash for her statistics textbooks. Now, a year later, she wonders if the professor, Dietrich Kuhlmann, a research professor of biostatistics, was making a profit off her or was doing something unethical by selling her his book directly rather than through a major publishing house. Jayne O’Connor, a law student, also took STA 119 with Kuhlmann when she was a sophomore undergraduate. She said it felt strange to pay Kuhlmann in cash. “It just felt sketchy,” O’Connor said. “It felt like he was using the class as an opportunity to make money for himself ... All the people I was in the class with thought it was a weird thing. We all felt it wasn’t the right way to go about it.” Kuhlmann is the only professor for the course. This semester there are 723 students enrolled in it. At $40 per student, he collected nearly $30,000 in cash. Malkowski now questions if Kuhlmann was “producing [the books] himself, and then up-charging them to make a profit.” Other students at UB are asking similar question about their professors who assign textbooks they’ve written. UB has no regulations about professors assigning their own textbooks, nor does the university have any written rules about professors accepting cash from students for self-published books. This lack of policy leaves students wondering whose wal-
The email, which was sent on Tuesday evening, stated her professor wouldn’t excuse the absence unless the university was closed. On Wednesday afternoon, A. Scott Weber, senior vice provost of Academic Affairs, sent out a letter to faculty stating they should be understanding of students who missed classes because of driving bans. Khoury said the university should have sent the notice out Tuesday morning. The letter read: “I remind all faculty that any student who is unable to attend a regularly scheduled class or exam or complete assignments because of weather related conditions should be offered reasonable accommodations for any missed academic work.” Khoury felt not canceling classes gave professors too much wiggle room and it didn’t change the fact she missed class material, she said. Kristen Kozlowski, a junior business major who lives in Lancaster, said her professor refused to give her an extension on a project that required a Windows computer to complete. Kozlowski, who has a Mac, usually does those assignments on campus. Instead of spending Thursday helping her family shovel snow to prevent her roof from collapsing, she had to struggle to download a program to essentially turn her Mac into a PC.
let their money is going into. At the University of Minnesota, Southern Utah University and Cleveland State University, a faculty committee must approve if a professor can use his or her own text. North Dakota State University and the University of North Texas caution professors against making money off the sales of their texts to their students unless the text is “independently accepted” in its field. Elaine Cusker, the associate dean for academic affairs and undergraduate education, said in an email at UB “courses are proposed and approved with descriptions and expected student learning outcomes, faculty are generally then free to choose the most appropriate instructional materials.” There are no published statistics as to how many professors at UB are using their own textbooks, but The Spectrum knows of at least three other professors – Brian Reynolds, adjunct assistant professor and the sole professor of COM 101, Richard Almon, professor of biological sciences and adjunct professor of pharmaceutics and Donald McGuire, the undergraduate programs administrator and an adjunct associate professor of classics – who write and assign texts they’ve published. Almon and his wife Debra Dubois, a research scientist and research associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences and biological sciences, co-wrote their textbook for BIO 129. Sometimes, these self-created textbooks can cost more than $100 dollars each. “I understand that college is ultimately a business and that teachers need to make a living too, I don’t think it’s right for them to be making a living off of students,” said Thomas Retter*, a student taking McGuire’s first-semester World Civilizations class. SEE BIG MONEY, PAGE 4