College April Fool’s Jokes Poke Fun at Campus Maintenance, AI

Yesterday was April Fool’s Day, the one day a year when a college can poke fun at its students without ruffling too many feathers. Institutions have once again come out in full force, taking to social media to announce everything from new curricula to massive renovation projects that may or may not be real.

Here are some of the most fun—and, in some cases, most convincing—pranks colleges played this April Fool’s Day.

AI Faculty

In a prank that doesn’t feel too far from reality, Indiana Tech, a private university in Fort Wayne, announced that it was launching the world’s first artificial intelligence professor, modeled after a real biomedical engineering expert.

“To make an AI professor, the faculty member is fitted with an EEG cap to measure electrical activity during a series of tests,” said the AI bot of Professor Jack Phlipot, also known as “Jack I,” in a video shared on Indiana Tech’s social media sites. The tests in question involve trying to fit plastic shapes into the correct holes. “That, along with a recorded video file, provides my advanced AI learning module all the knowledge, mannerisms and vocal patterns of the professor.”

“Jack I” boasted that it offers 24-7 office hours and can answer student questions in under 0.3 seconds.

Fight Song Rewrite

What if one of the nation’s best known fight songs, dating back to a late-1800s drinking ditty, was edited to censor the word “hell”?

If it weren’t an April Fool’s joke, it would surely cause an outcry; “hell” is hardly the most obscene word most college students are likely to hear on any given day. Luckily, Georgia Tech isn’t actually changing the lyrics to its famous fight song, “(I’m A) Ramblin’ Wreck From Georgia Tech,” but its annual prank showed what those alternate lyrics might look like, changing “hell” to “tarnation” and “helluva” to “doozy.”

A group of students even performed the censored version in a video shared on the university’s social media.

“The decision to remove the words was made by the Fellowship of Offensive Language Suppression (FoOLS)—part of a newly formed task force that specializes in inappropriate uses of slang, vernacular, and parlance,” the post’s caption read.

Though it’s just a prank this time, a history of the song from the Georgia Tech alumni association notes that the words “hell” and “helluva” were once expunged from the lyrics for being vulgar. Clearly they made their way back into the song eventually.

Curriculum Overhaul

Brown University posted a fake news alert stating that it was replacing its distinctive open curriculum model, in which students are not required to take general education classes, with a “closed curriculum.” Under the new model, all students would have to take 30 courses in the field of psychoceramics—the study of cracked pots.

The joke harkens to a fictitious Brown professor, Josiah S. Carberry, who is said to have studied cracked pots, a play on the term “crackpot.”

Beasts on Campus

Towson University in Maryland teased that the university would bring a “comfort tiger” to campus, inspired by the university’s tiger mascot, Doc.

“With the success of Bruno, our existing campus comfort dog, we’ve expanded the program to include a new tiger cub,” the university wrote on social media.

A link to learn more about the creature leads to a Q&A with Kat Ahlrichs, a Towson sociology professor, about the history of April Fool’s Day and how to suss out misinformation on the holiday.

The University of Texas at Arlington’s prank was similar; in a post announcing their “official campus horse,” Maverick, officials wrote that students who run into the animal while it roams the campus are “encouraged to interact respectfully and not feed the horse.”

The prank is another that’s not too far from reality; though comfort tigers aren’t a real phenomenon, some institutions do have live exotic animals as their mascots, including Louisiana State University’s Mike the Tiger, who lives in a 15,000-square-foot habitat near the campus’s football stadium.

Facilities Upgrades

In a prank centered around the bane of every student’s existence—building maintenance—the University of Washington announced that, as part of otherwise-real restorations to the exterior of Suzzallo Library, an enormous bust of UW’s husky mascot, Dubs, will be placed on the building’s facade.

The announcement on social media claims the sculpture will be 110 feet long and 35 feet tall and crafted out of terra-cotta.

“A tribute to both tradition and school spirit—and yes, a very good boy,” the post reads.

The College of Charleston also announced changes to campus facilities as its April Fool’s prank, saying that there would soon be a pool in the campus’s main yard where students could cool off between classes.

The post seemed to dupe a few students, who commented asking if the news was real; others seemed disappointed that it was a joke, with one commenter writing that a pool on the quad “high key would be sick.”

Actors’ Studio

Have you ever wanted to study the genius of Adam Sandler? You can in a new UC Riverside class, at least according to the institution’s April Fool’s prank, which promoted a fake class in the university’s Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production that would explore the “cultural impact of Adam Sandler movies on today’s society.”

The dress code, of course, is Hawaiian shirts and basketball shorts.

“Now why is this a joke[?]” one commenter asked. “Let’s ACTUALLY do this.”

Indeed, many colleges do offer real classes exploring the work and impact of individual celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Tyler Perry.

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