Spring Puzzler

The problem with coming up with academically-related puzzlers is that Google makes it too easy. I mean, five years ago, I could have asked, “What is the academic relevance of Catholepistemiad?” and “What is the academic relevance of ‘haben swaben rebecca le animor,” and “How long is a smoot, and which university determined that?” and real work would have been required. Now: 10 seconds on Google.

Nonetheless, here are five questions from the trivia vault which may be a bit harder. The first correct answerer of each wins an actual blank ready-to-fill-in-your-own-name large ornate diploma of the Millard Fillmore Institute.* One will be “awarded” for each of the following questions. And no, I will not (at this time) sell or give them away otherwise. Here goes. Post replies here or send to me at [email protected]. Decision of the judge is final.

1. On what campus do we find something made famous (and still famous) by a man (first name Alfred) who was killed in World War I?

2. For what academic person, place or thing was Kermit the Frog named?

3. There is a college or university that participates in only one intercollegiate sport, which happens to be a ball sport in which the players do not touch the ball with any part of their body. Name the school and the sport.

4. There is a regionally accredited college or university that is now operating under its sixth different name. Name it.

5. What was Aristophanes’ contribution to modern intercollegiate athletics?

__________
* This large and ornate diploma was created (by me) in the late 1960s, to make fun of the world of honorary degrees. My wife and I used to send them to people we liked. Then Johnny Carson went and held his up on the Tonight Show in front of 5 million people, and Time Magazine came calling, and things almost got out of hand. So we closed the Institute 30 years ago. But we still have a short stack of 1967-vintage blank diplomas, on genuine imitation parchment.

 

Kermit the Frog named after Kermit Scott, professor of philosophy at Purdue.

I gotta post this quickly before Sainz jumps in.

 

Well, 10 seconds on Google for Aristophanes, source of the Yale college cheer.

Here's a snippet from Yale Alumni Magazine:

• In April 1903, 12 members of the "13" Club, an eating club of the Class of 1886, agreed on these facts: On the afternoon of January 24, 1884, two members were studying the text of Aristophanes' Frogs. As they scanned the text of the chorus of frogs on the banks of the river Styx, one discovered a line well suited to "make a great noise," and the cheer "Brek-ek-ek-ex ko-ax, ko-ax" was born. They then added the words "oh-op-op"-Greek for "hello"-taken from another line spoken by Charon. A third friend possessed of a deep bass voice contributed the final line, "Parabalou" (or "lay to") also spoken by Charon as his boat approaches the shore.

 

Question 4 has already been answered on this board:

See http://www.degreeinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2782

 

Oh. Since I had forgotten the 6-names answer posted here, and since that was not the one I had in mind, and since the judge has decreed that you can't win a prize when you didn't know you were answering a question to be posed months later, Question 4 is now revised as follows:

4. There is a regionally accredited college or university that has more than 6,666 students, and is now operating under its sixth different name. Name it.

 

The only intercollegiate sport at St. John’s College, Annapolis, is croquet.

 

The only intercollegiate sport at Laramie County Community College (Wyoming) is rodeo! Does it involve balls that are not touched?

 

Gert writes: "Kermit the Frog named after Kermit Scott, professor of philosophy at Purdue. I gotta post this quickly before Sainz jumps in."
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The judge says: I'm thinking this one over. The rules subcommittee may have to meet. I am remembering, relevantly, the time on Jeopardy where the contestant's response "Woodrow Wilson," in a matter relating to the 28th US President, was deemed to be incorrect, challenged, and sustained.

 

For Question 1, the best I've been able to come up with is Alfred Joyce Kilmer, killed in action in 1918. His famous poem, Trees, was apparently inspired by a tree that stood on the grounds of Cook College, Rutgers. The tree remained until the 1980's but is now gone.

 

Theodore Kermit Scott

 

The tree is gone, but the house in which Kilmer was born still stands. The street it stands on is now called Joyce Kilmer Avenue. And it houses the Dial-A-Ride transportation service. Ah well...Fama volat.

 

Minnesota State University, Mankato:
http://www.daily.umn.edu/daily/1998/10/01/news/name/


Cheers,

 

The story at the URL Tom provided does say that the name was changed 5 times. But I can only find the following:

• 1866 Mankato State Normal School
  1921 Mankato State Teacher's College
  1957 Mankato State College
  1975 Mankato State University
  1998 Minnesota State University, Mankato

 

Six names highlighted below:

• Georgia College & State University was chartered in 1889 as Georgia Normal and Industrial College. Its emphasis at the time was largely vocational, and its major task was to prepare young women for teaching or industrial careers. In 1917, in keeping with economic and cultural changes in the state, Georgia Normal and Industrial College was authorized to grant degrees, the first of which was awarded in 1921. In 1922, the institution's name was changed to Georgia State College for Women. The college has been a unit of the University System since it was formed in 1932.
  
  The name was changed to Woman's College of Georgia in 1961, and, when the college became coeducational in 1967, it became Georgia College at Milledgeville. This name was later shortened to Georgia College. In August of 1996, the Regents approved a change of name to Georgia College & State University, and a new mission as Georgia's public liberal arts university.

See http://www.gcsu.edu/GCSU/gen/new_about_gcsu.html

 

OK, here's one more and then I'm giving up:

• 1909 Santa Barbara State Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics
  1919 Santa Barbara State Normal School
  1921 Santa Barbara State Teachers College
  1935 Santa Barbara State College
  1944 University of California, Santa Barbara College
  1958 University of California, Santa Barbara

See http://www.instadv.ucsb.edu/alumni/yourassociation/assochistory.html

 

I'm throwing my hat into the Question #4 ring;

The University of Massachusetts-Lowell has been......

Massachusetts State Normal School at Lowell 1894-1932

Lowell Textile School 1895-1928

State Teachers College at Lowell 1932-1960

Lowell Textile Institute 1928-1953

Massachusetts State College at Lowell 1960-1968

Lowell Technological Institute 1953-1975

Lowell State College 1968-1975

University of Lowell 1975-1991

University of Massachusetts at Lowell 1991-Present


Bruce

 

Weird that they went from a Normal School to a Textile School to a Teachers College to a Textile Institute... Couldn't decide whether they wanted to educate teachers or textile workers?

 

The 'tute and college were *separate* entities until '75 when they merged to form U. Lowell.

Pete

 

#4: Michigan State U.

Agricultural College of the State of Michigan
State Agricultural College
Michigan Agricultural College
Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science
Michigan State University

 

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) ...

was KIA in France during WWI. He wrote the poem "Trees" which was reputed to be inspired by an old oak on the Rutgers campus.

"I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree; Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree."

The 165 year old oak was felled in 1963, but a sapling grows from an acorn taken from the original tree which was planted in 1987 ...