Snowstorm Sacks School

The biggest snowstorm to hit the Northeast in seven years left Harvard students navigating narrow paths between mounds of snow along the streets and sidewalks of the Square yesterday, splashing through the thin layer of slush that remained on the ground.

“It’s disgusting,” said Leyla R. Bravo ’05, a native of Miami, FL. “It’s just too much—I can’t take this,” she said, as the snow began to fall again yesterday afternoon.

“When people walk by you it goes flying. People are not considerate,” said Ariana I. Ornelas ’04. “And I like shoes with high heels, so I really don’t like walking in the snow.”

Despite some student speculation that the College might close for the first time since 1978 due to the inclement weather conditions, most undergraduates returned to class yesterday, in the wake of a blizzard that left more than a foot of snow on the ground.

“I love the snow,” said Conrad Kilroy, a Brandeis student standing with Bravo and Ornelas in front of the John Harvard statue yesterday. “I think it’s beautiful.”

And the fact that his school had cancelled classes, like several other colleges in the area, made the scene all the more pleasing, he said.

Ornelas said she wished Harvard had followed suit.

“There’s no justice in that,” she said.

MIT and Lesley University also closed their doors yesterday.

And at Harvard, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health and the Divinity School were closed, while Kennedy School and Law School officials cancelled morning classes.

But most College classes took place as scheduled, much to the chagrin of some unprepared undergraduates.

Vladimir P. Djuric ’06 said he expected classes to be cancelled.

“I was banking on it,” he said, “and I ended up doing homework at six in the morning.”

Some professors e-mailed students Monday night to tell them their classes were cancelled, and some sent announcements yesterday morning after snow-filled driveways and bad driving conditions kept them at home.

But those who were forced to cancel classes said they would still be able to stay on schedule.

“I’ve already devised a way to catch up,” said Professor of German Peter J. Burgard, who cancelled yesterday’s meeting of his course, Literature and Arts C-65, “Repression and Expression:Literature and Art in Fin de Siecle Germany and Austria.”

Matt C. Lynch ’03, who found out his English 185, “Wit and Humor” lecture had been cancelled in an e-mail from Bernbaum Professor of Literature Leo Damrosch yesterday morning, spent the day with roommates whose classes were not cancelled.

“I think most of my roommates didn’t go anyway,” he said. “But I sensed some subtle resentment.”

Though a snow-related ankle sprain kept Lynch out of the slush, his roommates brought the snow inside for a dorm-room snowball fight.

With three of his classes cancelled, Timothy J. Patton ’06 used the extra time to catch up on his schoolwork.

“I was up really early because I didn’t think they’d be cancelled,” he said. “I watched a movie...I didn’t go out or anything because a lot of people had class. I was surprised, I was one of the only ones.”

Patton said he, too, faced some resentment from less fortunate friends.

One “seemed to get mad,” he said.

“She hit me! Not hard, though,” he added.

Some students who attended scheduled classes, however, still had a brief reprieve.

“I had class in Annenberg and someone pulled the fire alarm...so I got a 40 minute respite from Expos,” said Melissa E. Cronin ’06. “A fire day instead of a snow day.”

Though no information about the storm was published on the College’s website yesterday, some House senior tutors e-mailed students to remind them that classes were still in session.

For at least one administrator, however, the large snowfall was more than a matter of logistics.

Assistant Dean of the College Wendy A.F. Torrance brought her daughter, Honor, outside for a chance to play in the snow—sledding on the steps of Memorial Church in Tercentenary Theatre.

“It’s a chance to get out at the end of the day,” she said.

Torrance’s husband, Andy, guided Honor down a shallow slope he had carved in the snow.

“And it’s the only hill on campus,” he said.