Weekly roundup: involvement, an app and lots of snow

The fall semester is filled with emails, advertisements, fliers and announcements regarding clubs and organizations to join, interest meetings to attend and surveys to fill out.

It serves as an insanely busy time of adjusting from summer break to coursework, making friends and getting back into the swing of things in South Orange.

New this semester is the Spring Inolvement Fair, which is a great way to meet more people on campus and add more to your resume.

The Setonian is holding an interest meeting on Jan. 29 for anyone who would like to join our staff who could not do so in the fall. It is really never too late to sign up and work in what interests you!

There's an app for that: The Village of South Orange is now working with a mobile app company called PublicStuff, created for villagers to submit 311-type complaints and concerns to the proper authorities.

Photos can even be attached. The status of the concern filed is updated after submission to receipt and so on. It would be way easier for on-campus students to file facilities requests this way, instead of explaining the concern on a paper form and not knowing the status of the request. SHU, think about this one!

The weather outside is weather: The drive down South Orange Avenue from campus to the area around Valley Street takes five minutes on an average day. One of our editors left campus after her 11 a.m. class dismissed around 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday and did not get to her home on Academy Street until 40 minutes later.

By 10:30 a.m., Route 280 was virtually a parking lot. An adjunct professor in the department of communication & the arts said he was five minutes from campus when the Pirate Alert for dismissal at noon was sent at 11:01 a.m. Nearby Caldwell College did not receive an all-clear for early dismissal until close to noon, either.

While this was an added stress, the storm did start earlier than expected. We're about a month through winter and already survived a polar vortex with record temperatures. It will all be OK.