It’s the time of year when the “Spring” in “Spring Semester” seems more like a sarcastic jeer than a straightforward description: temperatures plummet, snow covers the ground, and the winds that whip through campus feel twice as fierce as they normally do.

But the winter has its charms, among them the chance to play ice hockey on a frozen Swan Lake, the opportunity to build snowmen or sled down Horsebarn Hill after a big snowstorm, or the simple reflection on the dazzling natural beauty of campus blanketed by snow on a sunny day, a splendid raiment for the most austere time of year.

None of these delights – or grumbles – are new to UConn: students have been sledding and skating as long as there have been students here. In this gallery, we look back at one brief era in that history: the 1990s, when you could park your car next to Homer Babbidge Library, the phone wasn’t something you carried around with you everywhere, and doing work on the computer meant going to special labs in the library or Math & Science Building and waiting until a terminal was free. Although some things have changed since those days, as these photos show, the experience of winter in Storrs is one that unites generations of Huskies.