Campus pranks now come with permission slips

Security concerns after 9/11 mean the days of high jinks-first, question-later are gone

By Tom A. Peter | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 31, 2007 edition

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In Pasadena, Calif., the Christmases and New Years are seldom white, which is why one California Institute of Technology (Caltech) student thought it might be fun to add an unexpected snow flurry to the annual Rose Parade on New Year's Day. Wanting to ensure his impromptu dusting wouldn't scare anyone, the student first spoke with local police.

Instead of responding with a simple yea or nay, the police launched an investigation, recounts Thomas Mannion, assistant vice president for campus life at Caltech. Six different police departments and the Department of Homeland Security contacted the would-be prankster before authorities dropped the case.

As the US celebrates Halloween, a night of time-honored trickery, college campuses across the nation may find themselves the target of many a practical joke. What's changed is how these jokes are carried out. Cultural shifts have altered the boundaries of what's acceptable, and 9/11 has raised new security concerns. All of this has made administration-monitored pranking the norm for universities that wish to preserve the tradition.

For better or worse, the days of prank-first, question-later are gone. In an open letter to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology student body, which, like Caltech, has a longstanding history of pranks, Chancellor Phillip Clay wrote earlier this month, "We cannot deny the fact that what was tolerated in the past, and may even have been celebrated, is now viewed differently."

In the mid-'80s, for example, MIT students hacked the elevator system in a campus building. When passengers pushed a button, the car delivered them to a random floor. While the prank, or hack, as they're called at MIT, has attained legendary status, Kirk Kolenbrander, vice president for institute affairs, says that now such a stunt would likely make waves.

"That's clever, but at the same time our society today would say that there are real safety issues if that elevator is needed in an emergency," says Mr. Kolenbrander. "Our world has a different patience for those issues than it once did."

Even among the student body, tolerance for tomfoolery has begun to change. Following complaints in 2000 from several students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., about an annual prank where sophomores perform elaborate freshman room rearrangements – such as turning a dorm room into a campsite, complete with sod – administrators decided that rather than sacrifice their prank culture, they would refine it by creating a "no prank list."

"There is an implicit assumption that when you come to Harvey Mudd that you are willing to be party to pranks against you and your room," explains Guy Gerbick, associate dean of students. "We tell students during orientation, 'If you don't want to have certain things or yourself or any of your stuff pranked, let us know, and we'll put you on a list.' "

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