If you're looking forward to a day of snowball fights, watching old movies and sipping hot chocolate while holed-up in your room for a snow day, don't plan on buying your mini-marshmallows just yet.
No matter how much snow arrives this winter, classes won't be cancelled any time soon. Having closed down only three times in its history, the University aims to keep its facilities open at all times to avoid inconveniencing students and community members dependent upon it for services.
Winter's wrath hit campus and closed services across the board for one day each in 1945 and 1974, and two days in 1978. The storm in January of '78 was the most severe, blanketing Michigan with 19 inches of snow, with flooding and tornadoes in several Eastern states.
On Friday, Jan. 27, 1978, The Michigan Daily reported that some students were taking the opportunity to frolic in the knee-high snow, trying to fool Mother Nature into sunny weather by wearing summer garb.
"A slightly sauced crowd in front of the Carriage House apartments threw the day's big social event - 'the first beach party of the year,'" the Daily said. "Lounging in drifts of 'sand,' the snowbathers guzzled beer and other booze, all day blaring sound of the Beach Boys' 'Endless Summer.'"
Erica Munzel, director of Law School admissions, was a senior and a resident advisor in Bursley Hall on North Campus in '78. She recalled the two carefree days of cancelled classes with a smile.
"We just had a great time and basically had a play day, sledding on trays behind the music school," she said, adding that she spent the entire two days on North Campus since the roads were impassable. While some dorms didn't have food service during those days, Munzel said she remembered Bursley being very self-sufficient and by the end of the storm only lacked for candy bars in the snack bar.
Though Munzel and other students may have enjoyed the reprieve from homework pressures, not all members of the University community have been so overjoyed.
Former Vice President for Government Relations Dick Kennedy reflected with chagrin on the '74 closing, when 18 inches of snow kept students from returning to school the Monday after Thanksgiving recess.
"Frank (Rhodes, the former provost) was in charge and found to his dismay that closing the University was not the thing to do," Kennedy said. He noted that the closing posed a huge problem for patients needing treatment from the University Hospitals and for graduate students and professors in the midst of experiments.
"When you shut down a hospital, all hell breaks loose," Kennedy said. "I don't want to say it was comical, but (the closing) ... set off a round of things no one thought of." Since employees were not required to punch in, Kennedy said, maintenance crews weren't available to clear the frost-covered paths.
Lisa Mitchell-Yellin, associate director for Law School publications, was a junior living in East Quad in '74. "We all thought it was really funny that the University was closed. There was no one around due to Thanksgiving, so it was really eerie. People were cross-country skiing in the streets."
The downside, Mitchell-Yellin said, "was that if you lived in the dorm, you didn't get services either. Your actual living environment was totally disrupted."
"They tell (employees) not to come, they don't," Kennedy said, "Then it just snowballs," he said with a chuckle.
In December of 1945, the University had a more amenable closing, as classes were cancelled at noon on the last day before Christmas break. The Daily reported that extra trains were called up to get students home to Boston, New York and other Eastern cities, since later trains would be in use by the federal government for transporting a large number of troops from the West Coast.
University spokesperson Kim Clarke said that contrary to popular belief, the University had the community in mind when it created its policy on shutting down. "It's extremely rare to close the University ... because we're a residential campus. If we close, residence halls don't feed residents and there's no public safety. If we close, (students are) not provided the services they're required to get."
The University is not prohibited from closing due to legal action by students. Although the tale of law students practicing their expertise on administrators is common on campus, Clarke said there is no truth to the tale. "It's just one of those urban legends."
JOE WESTRATE/Daily
Leeann Fu observes a snowman on North Campus.