March 7-8, Tarleton State University and the surrounding town of Stephenville was hit with a series of thunderstorms and most notably an EF-1 Tornado. While these thunderstorms did not claim any casualties, the storm caused significant damage, and subsequently change the upcoming schedule for Tarleton.

“While the timing for a Tornado is never good timing,” said Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Communications, Harry Battson. “We really were fortunate in the way that due to the fact that it was spring break, many Tarleton students were not in town so we avoided any potential causalities”

Several of Tarleton’s buildings were damaged during the storm, most notably was the press box in Memorial Stadium that overlooks the football field. During the storms, the 90-100 MPH winds caught grip on a side of the press box wall and ripped it off.

While the Memorial Stadium is expecting renovations in the upcoming years, this storm has still caused thousands of dollars’ worth of damage and caused a delay of schedule for the new resident halls.

Several days after the storms had abated, Balfour Beatty, the contract company Tarleton uses, assessed the damage to construction of the new resident halls: Traditions and the Honors Hall addition. While construction workers are already working seven days a week, the storm caused a two pronged delay. The first is simply due to the fact that it would be unsafe for work to continue on the resident halls while it is pouring rain and a tornado is ripping through town, the second delay is the actual damage caused to the building itself. The new Traditions hall most notably had a staircase fall on the staircase below it.

Having estimated that the storm caused seven days of damage to construction, the Tarleton administration decided to push back the schedule of the entire 2016-2017 academic calendar by one week.

The first day of classes for fall 2016 semester will be on August 29, instead of the August 22. Previously Tarleton had a schedule that was typically a week behind other schools in the Texas A&M University system, with this delay, Tarleton’s schedule will align with the other schools in the A&M system.

This change does not just effect what day classes start, this week change causes both fall and spring semester to be pushed back a week. Christmas break will start a week later than in did in previous years and the graduation date will also be pushed a week forward from the previous years.

Expecting to see an increase of over 1000 students in the fall, administration is hoping that this delay and change of schedule will allow no students to be displaced and can move in on time for the fall.

While the academic calendar has been pushed back a week, major campus events, such as Tarleton’s Homecoming and Parent’s Weekend have not changed.