TCU students enjoyed a school-record five snow days in January and February when the university closed because of icy weather.
The occasion prompted a humorous e-mail from the school’s provost, Nowell Donovan, who for a second consecutive year, urged students to observe the break as “book days.”

“It’s a time to expunge the imps of ignorance that infest idle brain cells and force you to lounge beneath the sheets in a state of mental torpor,” Donovan wrote.

The Fort Worth-Dallas region experienced intervals of snow and ice that closed school districts, halted traffic to DFW International Airport and made a mess of Super Bowl festivities. Parts of Texas also suffered rolling blackouts.

On campus, students built snowmen and enjoyed snow ball fights, but stayed mostly inside.

So too did the provost, who wrote: “Clearly, for the second year running, Mother Earth is displeased with her children, and this time she is being particularly stern.  … This morning I went for a walk in my neighborhood — nothing was melting — to quote the old carol: ‘Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.’ Having spotted a nomadic polar bear tucking into some garbage, I rapidly retreated home and fortified myself with haggis and Aunt Nelly’s pickled red cabbage (a meal that is a variant of the Sonoma diet). I was very cold.”