When extreme winter weather hits, Memorial is ready for it.

The university has a detailed plan for informing people about emergency cancellations and closures.

Safety drives the decision on closures. When bad weather arrives, the decision to cancel classes or close the St. John’s campus rests ultimately with the university president (or his designate, should he be out of town). The president receives advice from a number of university units, particularly Facilities Management, which is in close contact with Environment Canada and the provincial Department of Works, Services and Transportation as weather systems develop.

Similarly, in Corner Brook, the vice-president (Grenfell Campus) or her designate makes the decision in consultation with Facilities Management (Grenfell Campus).

Since Memorial is a residential institution, it is a priority to maintain key operations and schedules to serve students who live on campus, even when the university is experiencing emergencies such as poor weather. The university doesn’t close except under unusual circumstances. In the event of severe weather or other emergencies, if Memorial has to cancel classes or close, information will be made available as quickly as possible through a variety of communications vehicles.

And with a population of more than 18,000 students and more than 5,000 faculty and staff, news has to get out fast.

In St. John’s, when closures happen midway through the day, a message is sent around campus as quickly as possible. It is phoned or faxed to student unions, faculties, schools, departments and divisions and emailed to employees via the Newsline email service. The closure message is also posted on Twitter, which you can follow at @MemorialU, posted to the www.today.mun.ca online news website and the main university website, www.mun.ca. The same notice is posted to the cancellations site at www.mun.ca/main/cancellations.php, which is also accessible by visiting the main webpage and via the MUNmobile app.

The Marine Institute notifies students, faculty and staff of closures and cancellations on the main website www.mi.mun .ca, as well as Twitter at @marineinstitute and its Facebook pages.

Similar actions are taken at Grenfell Campus via email, and information appears on www.grenfell.mun.ca. Closures are also posted on Twitter at @grenfellcampus and on its Facebook page. In addition, Grenfell changes its main phone line message to apprise students, faculty and staff of information as it becomes available.

Information is also relayed to provincial media who are extremely co-operative in airing the news as soon as possible.

Early closings during daytime will be announced at least one hour in advance. Advisories for late openings and all-day closures will be issued by 7 a.m. In addition to contacting the media and posting information to the university website, the Division of Marketing and Communications and, at the Marine Institute and Grenfell Campus, the communications co-ordinators, also make early morning phone calls directly to the heads of key university units.

University emergency closing procedures: www.mun.ca/main/closures.php

Office of Emergency Management’s severe weather procedures: www.mun.ca/emergency/know_what_to_do/weather.php

Personal emergency preparedness information: www.mun.ca/emergency/prepareweek

Parking information during winter weather: www.mun.ca/facman/parking_roads/snow_ice.php