Campus pranks now come with permission slips

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

from the October 31, 2007 edition

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Over half the student body has registered. According to Mr. Gerbick, most make specific demands, such as not to interrupt sleep or meddle with a prized guitar or stuffed-animal collection. Only about 15 students have asked for no involvement whatsoever.

At both Harvey Mudd and Caltech, students must get administrative approval before they perform pranks – that way they can be left up for the entire campus to enjoy. When Mr. Mannion began working at Caltech 14 years ago, he was distressed by a decline in student pranks at the institution, which holds the No. 1 ranking on the all-time college prank list, according to the Museum of Hoaxes. Caltech took top honors for a 1961 Rose Bowl stunt, in which Washington students were tricked into proudly holding flip cards aloft to spell "CALTECH."

Hoping to create a climate more inviting to high jinks, Mannion now counsels students about potential pranks, and, if he gives the OK, campus police and janitors are not allowed to stop the stunt. Caltech even has a $10,000+ fund to finance student pranks.

For university police on campuses with an established pranking culture, officers "walk a fine line," says John DiFava, director of security and campus police services at MIT in Cambridge, Mass, In most cases, his department will not actively try to stop pranks, although if they see students trespassing, they will intervene.

"On one side of the equation you have a policy that says there are certain places with restricted access, and on the other side you have a tradition that's celebrated from all different quarters of the institute ... and we're caught in the middle," says Mr. DiFava. "It's a really tough position."

Despite any potential friction they can create, Mannion argues that good practical jokes serve an important role in higher learning. "Pranks are great for all kinds of things: organizational skills, social skills, publicity," he explains. Mannion wrote a letter of recommendation for a student applying to the Rhodes Scholar program largely based on abilities he demonstrated on a cross-country prank against MIT.

For Todd Gingrich, a Caltech senior who has flown all the way to Boston to prank MIT students, a good prank is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their technical skills in a creative manner. "It's a way to show that locking ourselves in our rooms and studying forever can actually lead to some practical and amusing results," he says.

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