A University of Minnesota student was forced to drop a class due to a rule requiring mandatory attendance on the first day of classes. This class was crucial to her ability to graduate on time.
While walking to class in -20°F weather, an extra cold gust of wind froze her in her tracks just outside her class in Murphy Hall on Tuesday morning. She was marked absent and automatically dropped from the class.
Students would have been outraged if they had been able to see Winterbottom, but the wind and large hoods on their winter coats acted as blinders to their surroundings. Inside Morrill Hall, the University President was found bundled up in a blanket sipping hot chocolate.
“I would have gone and helped her myself,” the president said. “But I didn’t feel like going out in the cold when it’s so nice in here.”
Winterbottom will have to take the class she missed in the fall forcing her to graduate late. Her biggest concern after being thawed was not the terrible frostbite that left her with only three fingers and six toes, but rather her new financial problems.
“I have no idea how I’m going to pay for this,” Winterbottom said. “I’m starting to think the cold weather is just another scheme for them to make me give the school more money.”
