DeKALB – NIU closed its campus from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Jan. 23 because of an extreme cold warning. Despite expecting these conditions, NIU students who work on-campus jobs were still required to attend their shifts on that Friday and the following weekend.
Friday started at minus 11, while wind chills produced temperatures close to minus 35. The university sent out an email to students the day prior.
This email explained that in-person classes before 10 a.m should be moved virtually or be cancelled and that both services and offices will be operating virtually until 10 a.m.
While many services on campus were closed down from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25 due to bad weather, dining halls, call centers and Starbucks remained open.
Students who worked at these locations were required to attend their shifts or reschedule for another day over the weekend.
Regardless, the weather did not improve much over the weekend, with Saturday yielding temperatures as low as minus 11 degrees with wind chills as low as minus 26 and Sunday being 3 degrees with wind chills increasing slightly to minus 16 degrees along with snow.
Jamiyah Winfield, a first-year student majoring in pre-nursing and a dining hall employee, feels that on-campus jobs should be more accommodating toward their student employees.
“Since I live in Stevenson (residence hall), it’s easier for somebody who lives in Patterson to go to work rather than me,” Winfield said.
Kayla Love, an undeclared first-year and former employee of the IL-BRFSS Laboratory, wished that her former employers had just closed entirely.
“I think that they should have just been closed and then maybe stayed open later or opened up earlier during the next week to make up for the hours that they were closed during the cold weather,” Love said.
Love explained that the decision by her employers to stay open made her feel uncared for.
“I feel if the school were closed, jobs should be closed. I understand certain things are essential, but my job was not essential,” Love said. “For them to be open still was kind of like a slap in the face. It feels like they really don’t care about their employees.”
Catherine Ademola, a first-year student majoring in pre-nursing and an employee of the IL-BRFSS Laboratory, did not enjoy that she was required to work during the cold but chose to be understanding.
“I think they do care, but they want to do their job and get back to their life and forget that we are students. We can be slow at times because we also have school work,” Ademola said. “I also think they should not switch updates on us so fast because it takes time to process stuff that will work with our school schedules.”
The weather has gotten warmer, and students have been able to attend their jobs without any interruption caused by the weather.
M • Feb 5, 2026 at 4:48 pm
I have been working as an interviewer at the BRFSS lab for a long time, and I believe this may be a misunderstanding. We received an email from our Program Coordinator the day before informing us that, due to the extreme cold, we were not required to attend our scheduled shifts if it was difficult to come to the lab. We were also given the option to make up the missed hours by rescheduling our shifts to another day within the same week.
Elizabeth • Feb 5, 2026 at 4:36 pm
Employees at the IL-BRFSS Laboratory weren’t required to come in during the extreme cold, especially if they did not have reliable transportation. While employees who missed their Friday shift were encouraged to reschedule for Saturday or Sunday, it was not required to reschedule their shift.
Z • Feb 5, 2026 at 4:12 pm
At the BRFSS survey research lab the employees were sent an email that they were not required to come in at all for their shifts that day, it was optional. Management even stated specifically not to come in if you have to wait for a bus or walk and to only attend if you own a car/could directly get a ride from someone. Or if you wanted to come in at 10 instead of 9 you were able to, they’re always flexible & understanding. If the anyone decided to not come in because of the cold there were no consequences.
Samuel • Feb 5, 2026 at 4:01 pm
Hi there, I am an employee at the Survey Research Lab and would like to clarify that the manager of the lab stated that no student employees were required to work on Friday during the extreme cold, not even just during the 4am-10pm closure, but for the entire day. It was optional and management was even willing to reschedule shifts to days where NIU did not have a partial closure in place. The lab remained open on Saturday and Sunday because NIU did not offer guidance for weekend shifts, and there were no extreme cold warnings issued by the National Weather Service. Due to a contractual obligation, the lab must operate, when possible, which is stated at the time of hire. The Lab was not interviewed or given an opportunity to speak in this article which is not the best way to go about conducting fair and impartial journalism and one would hope the author of this article’s supervisor would train them accordingly.
Chris • Feb 3, 2026 at 7:22 pm
I was at NIU in the late 70s. That was an epic cold period. Look it up. You can get used to cold weather. Just do it.