Students frolic in snowy playground

A fresh assault of winter weather has not kept the University from functioning, and it certainly has not kept many students from having fun. As Escort Service plodded cautiously on a restricted basis last night -- avoiding Pine, Osage and Spruce streets -- brothers from the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity could be seen shouting and tossing a football on a snowy field in Superblock. "It's never too cold to play football," said Wharton freshman Kenneth Hall. "We're animals," said College sophomore Paul Diller, whose lip was bleeding from a football wound. "I like the snow because it's nice and white and pretty," he added. Executive Vice President Janet Hale said last night the University would remain open today because the University feels "a very strong committment to educating our students." She said, however, that while she saw the influx of bad weather as merely a symptom of "winter in the north," the University does "want to make sure that students are safe." "We care here at the University of Pennsylvania," Hale said. Even so, Engineering junior Daniel Rowan said he fell "six or seven times" while walking around campus during the past few days. "I wasn't paying attention," Rowan said. "I tended to be in a daze." Rowan advised that "everybody should be careful because the city just ran out of salt." Wharton freshman Parri Spector said he was up until 3:30 a.m. yesterday participating in a mob snowball fight outside the Quadrangle. He said "about 100 people or so" were hurling handfuls of snow at each other "all through the night." "I was watching people from outside my window and just decided to go out there and have fun," Spector said. "A few friends of mine woke up this morning really sore," he added. In the spirit of Frosty and friends, Engineering sophomore Jeremy Morrison decided to build a snowman, topped with Cheez Wiz for its eyes and lips and a Penn hat to shield it from the cold. "I thought it was the college thing to do," he said about the creation which he built at 2:30 a.m. yesterday. Not all students at the University have hailed the recent precipitation as a white winter wonderland. College junior Alf Dolich described the weather as "wet and icky and it wasn't pleasant."