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
Stephanie Bonnes, Ph.D., assistant professor of criminal justice, has written a highly regarded book, shared her findings at a national military conference, and received new grant funding that will enable her to work closely with her students to expand her research.
August 27, 2025
For years, Stephanie Bonnes, Ph.D., has studied organizations at the intersections of gender, inequality, identity, and victimization. When she began work on a book about sexual assault and harassment in the military, she took a qualitative research approach, interviewing 50 servicewomen. She began simply by asking them to share moments – the ones that really stayed with them during their service.
As they told their stories, she discovered that 19 of the 50 women had been sexually assaulted during their service and all but three women had been subject to “an environment of pervasive sexual harassment.”
Her book Hardship Duty: Women’s Experiences with Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, and Discrimination in the U.S. Military asked why if the military “has some of the most comprehensive polices in our country to target sexual assault, the number of incidents hasn’t declined. How can they create a culture where this doesn’t happen or happens far less?”
Her book received much notice, and her scholarly papers have won awards from the Sociologists for Women in Society and the Sex and Gender and the Peace, War, and Social Conflict sections of the American Sociological Association, as well as from the Division of Feminist Criminology and the Division of Victimology of the American Society of Criminology. This year she was also nominated for a University faculty award for Excellence in Research.
In 2024, Dr. Bonnes was invited to be the keynote speaker at the National Discussion on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at America’s Colleges, Universities and Service Academies, hosted at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
“I really like speaking to military communities,” she said. “The Superintendent introduced me, and I was able to talk about what’s wrong, using the voices of servicewomen who were silenced. Getting that kind of buy-in from those who are highest up – this is how change is going to happen.”
Dr. Bonnes’ research and similar high-impact research being conducted by her colleagues across a variety of disciplines has played a key role in the University of New Haven being elevated in the latest research designations released by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The University is included in a new list of Research Colleges and Universities, that recognizes higher education institutions that spend at least $2.5 million annually on research and development.
Dr. Bonnes, who recently received an American Council of Learned Societies grant to expand her research, had already begun interviewing 23 military lawyers who prosecute sexual assault. With the grant, she will be able to further expand her research to interview victim advocates and judges to determine where problems lie and to find ways to make systemic, cultural change. She will work closely with University of New Haven graduate students who will analyze the data and co-write papers with her.
“Mentoring future researchers is my favorite part of my job,” she said. “I brought a qualitative methods course to the Criminal Justice Ph.D. program, and we now have several students doing qualitative research for their dissertations. Seeing them go on to do great work is so rewarding.”
Ultimately, Dr. Bonnes said the new Carnegie classification illustrates how students at the University of New Haven experience the best of both worlds.
“Typically, you don’t get to call yourself a research institution when you have most classes capped at 19 to 25 students, and we do, and that’s very special,” she said. “In classes that small, professors know their students and what their individual interests are. So, they can alert them to research opportunities. Having the prestige of being known as a research university while having small class sizes – that’s something we can leverage.”
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.