Nicole Ault | Collegian
March for Life demonstrators congregate in front of the Supreme Court at the annual event in 2013.
“MFL CANCELLATION!!” read the subject line of the email that landed in dozens of inboxes at 3:50 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21. The email arrived just four hours before 84 students and faculty planned to depart campus for a much-anticipated trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in the annual March for Life.
Two professors and 82 students, including a few from Siena Heights University, intended to travel by bus through the night and arrive in Washington early Friday morning — when weather forecasters were predicting the blizzard, which would later be called winter storm Jonas, would hit the D.C. area. Still, it wasn’t clear how severe the storm would be as of Wednesday.
“Things were starting to look dangerous [on Wednesday], but [we] still wanted to go,” Students for Life President senior Nichole Chaney said.
On Wednesday, Chaney held an informational meeting for the trip where there was no mention of potential cancellation.
Chaney said Dean of Women Diane Philipp asked her and March for Life Trip Coordinator junior Danielle Ciarelli to come to the Dean’s office with the bus contract, on Thursday Philipp advised that they cancel the excursion.
“Washington, D.C. declared a state of emergency due to the terrible snow storm, which is the main reason we decided to cancel,” Philipp said.
On Thursday evening, the National Weather Service predicted two feet of snow in the Washington, D.C. area for Friday with over 20 inches of snowfall in the city later that weekend.
“I think it was the best decision [to cancel the trip],” Chaney said.
Chaney said she was disappointed but noted other groups had become stranded for hours on their way back from the March or had buses called back by their bus companies.
Students for Life faculty adviser and Associate Professor of German Fred Yaniga, who has participated in the trip five times since coming to Hillsdale, agreed that the cancellation was a wise choice.
“That doesn’t make it any less painful,” he said.
According to Yaniga, Hillsdale students have taken the trip for 10 years and never cancelled before, though they had faced bad weather on previous trips
“At Hillsdale we take involvement in politics very seriously. We write about it in the Collegian, we talk about it in the cafeteria — but talk isn’t enough. Sometimes we need to put thoughts to action, and the March for Life is a very demonstrative way,” Yaniga said. “When you get to D.C., you see literally hundreds of thousands of other people — young people — excited, energetic, marching for that cause, and it gives you confidence. It gives you a sense of togetherness, pride, that you can’t get just by reading newspaper articles or blog posts about the cause.”
Students who missed the march this year due to the cancellation will receive a partial refund of the $70 they paid for the trip.
“The bus company contract did not permit a ‘same-day’ cancellation,” Philipp said. “[College General Counsel Robert] Norton phoned the company and did negotiate a substantial refund.”
Yaniga said he thought the bus company would refund at least two-thirds of the money.
“The hope is that we’ll be able to get that money back and use it for next year’s trip. And then we’ll be bigger and better than ever,” he said.