Winter weather reminder

Dear members of the UIC community,

The purpose of this communication is to remind our campus community about policies and procedures regarding inclement weather.

UIC never closes the campus entirely because of the residential, health care and research aspects of UIC operations. In rare circumstances, however, severe weather conditions may result in a change or cancellation of:

• On-site classes and labs.
• Some university operations or services.
• University events or programs.

When feasible, our goal is to make decisions regarding changes to morning university operations before 5 a.m. and before noon for evening operations. Students, faculty and staff who are signed up for UIC ALERT will receive an SMS/text message notification about such a change or a cancellation on their mobile device. Notification will also be posted to the UIC.edu homepage and on the UIC Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you are not already signed up for UIC ALERT, you are strongly encouraged to do so now, as it provides alerts about all emergency situations on campus, not just those that are weather-related. Subscribe your cell phone to receive text message alerts.

University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health) employees may call the information hotline at 312-355-9900 for operational updates and/or go to the employee intranet homepage for further instruction and updates.

Inclement weather often results in conditions that make travel difficult and at times hazardous. We encourage you to carefully consider your personal safety and local conditions in determining your ability to commute to the campus in extreme weather and ask for kind understanding of the situation and circumstances of others, including our students.

We continually monitor weather and road conditions throughout the area. During snow and ice storms we work diligently around the clock to clear the building entrances, streets, sidewalks and parking lots in order to keep the Chicago campus open and accessible. Priority for snow and ice removal is given to the hospital and ambulatory care areas, ADA entrances and parking spaces for people with disabilities, emergency routes and public walkways.

Temporary closures of some parking lots and the top decks of parking structures may be required to allow snow and ice to be safely removed. We will ticket or tow vehicles that disregard these closures. Depending on weather conditions — heavy snow, blowing wind, ice and the timing of the storm — it may take a few days to completely clear the campus and trash removal and recycling pickups may be delayed.

Please use the 24/7 phone number, 5-SNOW (312-355-7669) to report any snow or ice-related problems on campus.

Your patience and consideration are appreciated while our crews do their best to clear snow and ice.

John Coronado
Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services