While Wednesday's and Thursday's campus closings got students out of class, they caused students and faculty members to cancel or reschedule dozens of campus events.
There were 29 events, meetings and information tables scheduled for Thursday, according to the events page of The University of Memphis website, that were either canceled or rescheduled due to inclement weather and The University's closing campus.
Wednesday, 21 scheduled events were affected by The University's closing at 12:30 p.m.
The basketball homecoming pep rally, originally scheduled for noon Thursday, has yet to be rescheduled for another date, said Student Government Association Vice President K'La Harrington.
Harrington, who is in charge of the event, said SGA will attempt to hold the pep rally before the semester ends, prior to the end of the regular season, if possible.
Representatives of the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities canceled a celebration of Frantz Fanon, philosopher and author of "The Wretched of the Earth," planned for Thursday night.
Their speaker, Lewis Gordon, the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, is also scheduled to speak today at the Philosophy Graduate Student Conference at 4 p.m. in the University Center River Room. He will incorporate the speech he planned for Thursday night about Fanon into today's presentation.
"It is incredibly inconvenient that this is the case, especially since the snow is melting and the roads are now almost totally safe," Jonathan Judaken, director of MOCH, said Thursday afternoon.
"We received many phone calls asking if the (Thursday night) event would happen, and quite a few people were disappointed about its cancellation," he said. "But they were pleased to learn that we had made alternate plans to still make the event happen in some form."
Rebecca Afua Van Dyck-Laumann, of the international programs department, planned to help host scholarship information sessions Thursday afternoon in Brister Hall. Three speakers chosen to present at the sessions flew to Memphis on Wednesday and left Thursday afternoon.
"It is unfortunate the weather affected this event," Van Dyck-Laumann said. "It is not likely that we will be able to offer such an opportunity in the near future. The presenters were attending a conference in Memphis, so we took advantage of their trip here to have them talk to our students and faculty about the Fulbright and Gilman scholarships."
Other events planned for Thursday were more easily moved to another day.
Black Scholars Unlimited had planned to host "Dollar for a Stack" in the University Center atrium. Students could guess how much money was in a jar, and whoever guessed correctly would win the money.
The event, a fundraiser for a Great Pretenders benefit concert for the Ronald McDonald House charity, was ultimately rescheduled for Monday and Tuesday.
"It kind of was (inconvenient) because we told those who guessed (the amount of money in the jar) that we would e-mail the winner on Friday," said junior international business major Ciara Arrington, BSU's activities committee chair. "However, I can understand that the weather did (have) a major impact on the decision of The University's closing."
Several registered student organization meetings were canceled due to weather, as well as a rehearsal for the Miss Black and Gold Pageant and The University of Memphis Wind Ensemble concert, originally scheduled for Thursday night.
