Football players at Centre College in Kentucky shovel ice and snow off the field.
Record-breaking low temperatures and winter storms across the southern and central United States caused widespread power outages and forced dozens of colleges to close for at least several days.
The storms hit shortly after many colleges began what will likely be another challenging spring term. More and more institutions are transitioning to some in-person instruction amid the pandemic and welcomed more students to campus than they did in the fall. In some cases, the recent bad weather shut down campus COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites and threw a wrench in colleges’ efforts to keep students and employees socially distant.