In-Person Meetings for Classes on Monday, January 26, 2026 are Cancelled; Online/remote classes to be held as determined by Faculty.
Public Safety is tracking a significant snowfall that will be arriving in our area late Sunday morning (Jan. 25). It will snow heavily throughout the day and evening eventually tapering off Monday (Jan. 26) with 10-14 inches expected statewide. A sleet and freezing rain mix is also possible along the shore. Temperatures will be in the teens and twenties.
Due to this significant winter storm and the extensive campus clean-up operations that will need to take place, all in-person day and evening classes scheduled for Monday, January 26, 2026 have been cancelled. All scheduled in-person classes will transition to being held online or remotely. Additional information on the virtual format for each class will be provided by your instructor.
Faculty have been asked to prepare for Online or Remote sessions in the event of in-person meeting cancellations. These options will be determined by the Faculty member and all questions should be directed to the Faculty teaching each course section. Faculty also have been asked to be very understanding and accommodating of the individual situations of their students who may have difficulty managing these alternative online or remote class meetings on short notice.
Please note that only essential employees, as previously determined by their respective department leaders, should report to campus. All other employees should fulfill the requirements of their role remotely.
Campus operations for residential students, unless otherwise noted, will operate as scheduled, though hours may be modified or changed based on the conditions. Separate messages will be sent from the Peterson Library, the Beckerman Recreation Center, and Dining Services regarding any changes to their normal hours of operation. The Bergami Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation will remain open for residential students to use for study space and to participate in online classes.
Off-campus students that live in the City of West Haven should abide by the city’s parking ban during inclement weather to avoid having their vehicle tagged and towed. Please check the City of West Haven’s website for further information on their snow parking ban.
Can Predictive Modeling be Used to Project the Winner of the Super Bowl?
University of New Haven economist Armando Rodriguez has correctly predicted the last four Super Bowl winners. His pick for this year is in, and the numbers say the margin of victory will be razor thin.
January 31, 2019
By Renee Chmiel, Office of Marketing and Communications
Professor Armando Rodriguez, who has correctly picked the last four Super Bowl winners, also predicted that the Houston Astros would win the 2017 World Series.
Like hundreds of millions of sports fans around the world, Armando Rodriguez, professor and chair of the University of New Haven’s economics and business analytics department, will be watching the Super Bowl.
Unlike some fans, his prediction of the game’s outcome comes not from emotion, but from crunching the numbers. Using a model that factors in each team’s offense and defense, Rodriguez expects the Patriots to beat the Rams 33-32, and gives the Patriots a 56 percent chance to win. As a point of reference, FiveThirtyEight, the popular polling analysis website created by Nate Silver, predicts the Patriots have 53 percent chance of winning.
Rodriguez’s model is an adaptation of one developed by a statistics professor in the United Kingdom that was created to predict the outcomes of soccer games. Unlike many other prediction tools that involve inputting a great deal of data, Rodriguez says his is very simple.
"It measures offensive performance relative to the average and defensive capability relative to the average," said Rodriguez, a former U.S. Federal Trade Commission economist. "It’s a matter of combining those two – that’s it. After that, it’s just traditional statistics – how likely is that result relative to a different result."
"Once is a fluke, but we’ve got a pretty good record."Armando Rodriguez, Ph.D.
Relying solely on numbers, however, can’t take all of the emotion out of predicting the outcome of the game. Before last year’s Super Bowl, Rodriguez’s model, much to his chagrin, predicted that the Eagles would win, and friends and colleagues heckled him for predicting a Patriots loss. He was correct about the Eagles’ victory – even if he predicted that they would win by three instead of eight.
He says that although he’s correctly predicted each winner of the last four Super Bowls, he has not accurately predicted the score, which is, of course, much more difficult. But, he says, he’s been in the right ballpark, and he has confidence in the system overall.
"Once is a fluke, but we’ve got a pretty good record," Rodriguez said. "The idea is to create a little buzz at the University."
The system has indeed created a buzz – and not just in the lead up to the Super Bowl. Rodriguez and his students have used the system to accurately predict the winners of other contests, from the 2017 World Series (they correctly predicted the Houston Astros’ victory) to the Oscars.
Using the model, Rodriguez predicted that Moonlight would narrowly beat La La Land to win the award for best picture. When the presenters announced that La La Land had won, Rodriguez thought his system hadn’t worked. However, there had been a mistake, and Moonlight was declared the rightful winner minutes later.
"I’m inviting my students to look beyond their instincts, their heuristics."Armando Rodriguez, Ph.D.
After the Super Bowl is over, Rodriguez will be turning his attention to college basketball, using his model to predict the outcome of the NCAA tournament. Though he may not be winning any trophies or gold statues for correctly predicting these contests, he is having fun doing it, and it serves as a teaching tool in his classes.
The Super Bowl predictions have been an engaging and relevant way for the students in his introductory business analytics class to apply what they are learning.
"Everybody has an opinion," said Rodriguez. "I’m inviting my students to look beyond their instincts, their heuristics. The philosophical message is that the numbers are another important input into their decision making."