U-M cancels classes tomorrow and Thursday

Same story in Chicago. Loyola, UChicago, Northwestern, and DePaul. It's going to be colder than both Everest and Siberia, apparently.

anyone not from siberia

Mom looks like someone you don’t want disagree with. 

I was there from 1996-2000 and am 99.9% sure not one day was cancelled - and for us engineers getting to North campus could be a doozy some days.

I was there about the same time and remember that urban legend. Pretty sure the Daily did an article at some point where they looked into if there was any truth to it and found no evidence that had ever happened. The reality was the University thought that because most their students walked to class anyways there was no need to cancel. 

I was at UM from Fall 81 thru Fall 85 - remember this story well, even as a frosh. The story is the Blizzard of 1978, which was a super nasty historic storm that shutdown the state, caused UM to cancel classes. Yes, the rumor (maybe true) was that a law student or group of students sued for a "refund" for the missed day or two.

The winter of 1981-82 was not only super cold but record snow for the time. Luckily I was in South Quad and had all my classes on main campus. That winter, the Chargers played at Cincy for the AFC Championship in -59 below wind chill (-50 by the new formula). We all knew as students there was no way class would ever be cancelled, thanks to the lawsuit or threat thereof. 

Some of the laws have been reformed to prevent BS like what happened in 1978, so glad to see safety is not compromised. 

That said, would have been quite trashed by this time of night if I had been a student at the OSU game knowing classes were cancelled. 

Stepping aside from individual types of going out (I imagine my local mall is packed today), there's a difference between individuals making a voluntarily choice to endure the risk and difficulty of potentially dangerous weather, and an institution with 40,000 students holding normal operations that may compel some of those students to endure dangerous conditions that they are neither prepared for nor eager to encounter. 

If 37,970 students are perfectly fine with the weather and would all go out to restaurants and shopping centers if there is no class, and 30 people would not do so and lack the proper clothing but go out anyway because they don't want to miss a key lecture, and those 30 people get serious frostbite and/or hypothermia, that's a big news story and everyone is rightly angry at the administration for exposing those 30 to danger. 

I imagine that there are more than 30 people who will want to reduce their exposure to this weather in Ann Arbor. 

When I was at Michigan, I dated a girl with a nice set of Tauntauns. 

Yeah, but that was a long time ago.  Also in a galaxy far, far away.

Times have changed --- I was at Penn State during the January 1994 cold snap.  This was a very big cold snap --- set all-time record lows that still stand for Columbus, Akron and Pittsburgh. 

Harrisburg (the Pennsylvania state government) put the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania into emergency operations - all non-essential state organizations needed to close to preserve fuel and such.

Penn State (Joab Thomas, the President before Spanier) actually defied the PA governor and said NO, we're staying open.  So, off to class I went.

I’m on the supply side of things so no saving of lives here.

I’m not going to be outside for more than a minute at a time anyways. Nowhere near long enough to freeze. Not a big deal to be honest.

We're not a bank, Jerry.