For those of you who truly expected classes to be canceled last week because of freezing rain, I have just one thing to say to you: Welcome to Iowa State.

My friend still lives in the residence halls. She amused me with reports of how the freshmen in her house were jumping up and down the night of the storm, positively bursting with excitement over the prospect of not having classes the next morning.

I doubt they were as happy the next day as they attempted to ice skate their way to class.

In case you are new to this university, allow me to enlighten you as to Iowa State’s inclement weather policy.

There is none.

Actually, the university will cancel classes for certain environmental conditions.

The seven prerequisite conditions are listed in the Book of Revelations, but don’t bet on them occurring during your lifetime.

Not included as a prerequisite condition, however, is a major blizzard big enough to mark the return of the Ice Age.

Iowa State students learned this last year when ISU was the only bastion of bureaucratic idiocy to remain open during one of the worst blizzards in recent history.

I remember this day well. I remember taking one look outside my window that morning, wondering if I should make the attempt to head toward Drake. I saw a snowflake the size of the lead vocalist from Blues Traveler and said, “No.”

Neither Drake nor Iowa State canceled classes that morning. Drake was smart enough to cancel at noon. Iowa State didn’t bother to cancel classes until 4 p.m., when most students were finished with classes anyway.

It is a well-known rumor that top university officials meet in closed session in Beardshear Hall to determine if classes should be called on account of inclement weather.

This is untrue.

None of them bothers to leave his warm, secure house. Instead, they converse via conference call. The conversation typically goes like this:

President Martin Jischke: What does it look like outside? Should we cancel classes at Iowa State, the greatest land grant college ever erected?

Vice President for Student Affairs Tom Thielen: It looks pretty thick out there, but when I was their age I had to walk 10 miles to school in three feet of snow with no shoes. It builds character.

Vice President of Business and Finance Warren Madden: We probably won’t get sued. College students can’t afford lawyers. If anyone does sue us, we’ll just tie the case up in court until they graduate.

Thielen: They should be OK as long as they don’t try to drive to campus or walk on the sidewalks.

Jischke: Then in the great tradition of land grant universities, we shall have classes!

Okay, perhaps this is an exaggeration. Jischke uses the term “land grant university” in only every other sentence.

Instead of canceling classes, the university makes vain attempts at snow removal.

Snow removal at ISU involves a three-step process.

First, the sidewalks are plowed. Second, a vehicle supposedly brushes the remaining snow from the sidewalk surface.

In reality, this usually means the remaining snow is turned into ice from the pressure exerted by these vehicles, which, coincidentally, resemble steam rollers.

Finally, students get sick of slipping on the ice created by the university’s snow removal process and take to the adjacent grass.

Forget about campaniling. You are not a true Iowa Stater until you have tried to get to classes on an ice-covered campus.

I feel sad for those students who are never going to experience the joy of trying to retain their bipedal integrity while attempting to maneuver the hill east of the Memorial Union.

Before the new stairs were installed, the sidewalk leading from the Richardson Court Association to the Memorial Union was one big slide.

That hill provided a bonding experience for ISU students. Either you formed a human chain in the hopes of making it to the bottom in one piece, or you and everyone below you became entangled in a writhing heap of bruised and battered body parts.

The days of a quick slide down the Union hill are over now. Thanks to the ingenuity of the administration, students can now expect not a fun ride but a broken tailbone as they bump their butts down the new stairs.

In all seriousness, the inclement weather policy is something in which the Government of the Student Body should involve itself.

It makes no sense for the university to wait until noon to cancel classes, as is its habit, when the weather situation is usually serious enough by then to cause injury.

The GSB should be a vocal advocate of student safety on campus.

Advocating change in the university’s inclement weather policy would be a good start.

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Theresa Wilson is a graduate student in political science at ISU and a law student at Drake University.