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.
The Charger Blog
As part of its many green initiatives, the University is committed to composting, and it is now using food scraps to feed crayfish that are used in research.
October 6, 2021
In the spring of 2021, Sophia Gambale ’22 reached out me to see if she could use food scraps from the campus dining halls’ composting waste stream to feed the crayfish that were being used for research. After visiting the dining facilities and coordinating logistics, weekly collections of composted material were set up and the feeding began.
Sophia is a part of the University’s Center for Wildlife Forensic Research, a group that endeavors to improve wildlife forensic science and reveal ecological information important to the conservation of wildlife and the natural environment.
Over the summer, Sophia conducted research as part of the University’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, studying how crayfish behavior varied when they were exposed to different levels of a synthetic estrogen compound that is commonly used in birth control pills. This compound is subsequently released into the environment, since water treatment processes do not filter out this hormonal chemical.
“The effects of different pharmaceutical personal care products in aquatic ecosystems are only recently coming to light, and their effects on different organisms that fill important ecological roles in these ecosystems are now being studied more and more across different species,” explains Sophia, a forensic science major with a minor in environmental science, when asked why she feels so passionately about her research. “It's important to understand the implications of the presence of these pollutants in the environment and how they affect the natural behaviors of organisms and, therefore, affect the balance of the natural ecosystem.”
Providing the crayfish with a variety of foods from the dining hall waste stream, Sophia says, also encourages natural behaviors in the scavengers to select and eat the different types of food they prefer. In the wild, crayfish would encounter many different food sources, as opposed to just one type of food that might be used in a controlled environment such as a research lab.
“Using food scraps to feed the crayfish not only provides a higher quality of life for the research animals, but it also mitigates the need for fresh food products that would otherwise have to be obtained,” she says. “It also makes immediate use of otherwise unwanted waste material.”
The University of New Haven started composting in the fall of 2019, and we expanded our composting initiatives to all dining locations in early 2020. Composting is currently carried out by Sodexo staff, who add food scraps generated during meal preparation to separate composting totes located within the kitchen.
By composting, the University is able to reduce the amount of food waste that would typically add to the weight of our general trash output, which, in Connecticut, is sent out as waste to energy facilities, where it is burned.
Instead, the campus’s food waste is collected by Blue Earth Composting of Wallingford, Conn., and transported to Quantum Biopower, an anaerobic digestion facility in Southington, Conn. At this facility, the food waste is broken down and, in the absence of oxygen, leads to the creation of biogas, which can be used as a fuel to generate electricity.
I applaud Sophia for her work and her commitment to helping to protect the environment.
University News
New University-wide council will advance strategic partnerships, immersive student opportunities, and innovative research, supporting the University’s strategic plan the development of its pioneering Center for Innovation and Applied Technology.
The Charger Blog
Entrepreneur David Sussman, Pompea College of Business Advisory Board Member and chief visionary officer of The Family Security Plan®, is collaborating with University of New Haven students, faculty, and staff to create a program and app that helps Chargers support each other to achieve academic, personal, and professional goals. It’s called Uccountability.
University News
Vice President for Innovation and Applied Technology Paul Lavoie will serve on the Board of Directors and as America’s Chief Manufacturing Officer for the newly launched American Manufacturing Futures Institute.