The winter weather of the past two weeks has left sections of WKU’s campus difficult and dangerous to navigate, sending multiple students to the hospital.
A national winter storm the weekend of Jan. 24-26 left at least 4 inches of snow and at least a quarter of an inch of ice on the ground in Bowling Green, according to the National Weather Service. Persistent freezing temperatures and periodic precipitation in the weeks since have kept campus travel tricky into the first week of February.
Students have faced the challenge of making it to class on time and on their feet.
“There’s not really a place I can go (on campus) without stepping on the ice,” said Ben Sousa, a freshman history and military leadership double major.
Toula Burdette, a junior theatre major, was on her way to class in Gordon Wilson Hall when she slipped and fell, suffering abrasions to both hands and strains to her shoulder and neck.
“I dropped her off, but I saw her, she shut her door and then I didn’t see her anymore,” said Amber Givens, 44, Burdette’s mother and a WKU alumna. “I found her with her head on the stairs.”
Givens said her daughter has a class that gets out at 2:00 p.m. at Jody Richards Hall, and one at GWH at the top of the hill that begins at 2:20 p.m. Instead, at 2:30, Burdette was loaded into an ambulance.
Givens said she understood the university’s desire to resume classes, but then gestured to the ice-glazed stairs in front of GWH, “I’m sorry, but what is this, the ice-skating Olympics?”
Junior psychological science major Blake Foster said he’s had his own troubles navigating campus conditions.
“The worst thing I’ve really experienced is down here under the (Raymond Cravens) library, that little walkway, and those stairs, I caught myself from slipping a couple of times,” Foster said.
That same area is where another student fell on Monday and suffered two breaks in one of her legs. The student’s mother, Megan Bridenbaugh Walker, posted about her daughter’s injury on the WKU parent group on Facebook.
“My daughter was careful,” Bridenbaugh Walker said. “She did the best she could with what she was given by WKU, which was complete negligence on their part. I’m disappointed in decisions that were made and even more disappointed that we have not heard one word from the school on the incident.”
WKU Facilities Management Services has a 2025-2026 Winter Weather Response Plan map on its website, which designates “Pedestrian Snow Removal Routes.” This map includes a path between the Academic Complex and the Guthrie Bell Tower from JRH that has yet to be cleared. The area around the bell tower has been particularly dicey for students as they traverse campus.
“I was walking like a penguin yesterday, trying not to fall over,” said sophomore film major Vee Ramick. “I just don’t understand why they can’t use the plows anymore. What happened? Where did they go?”
