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My professorship at Hogwarts

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TO: Faculty

FROM: Dean of Students

DATE: April 7, 2010

SUBJECT: Senior Ditch Day 2010

As it has every year since 1921, Senior Ditch Day will take place sometime this term. Ditch Day is officially recognized as a holiday by the faculty (see the Faculty Handbook, Chapter 9, page 6), but the date is kept secret by the seniors. With great care and ingenuity, the seniors set up systems of puzzles and tasks, known as "stacks", for the underclassmen to work on. Stacks take a variety of forms, and many provide themed t-shirts to the undergraduate participants.

It has been customary for instructors to make allowances for the fact that not only seniors, but all undergraduates can be expected to devote the entire day to some creative and often bizarre enterprises. Because Ditch Day can fall on any day of the week, I encourage you to plan your courses so that one lecture may be missed or rescheduled. Please postpone the due dates for work originally due on Ditch Day for the day after. In addition, since underclass students do not know when Ditch Day is, it is reasonable to give these students an extra day to complete assignments that were due on the day after Ditch day. All students should also have the opportunity to make up labs.

If you ask seniors when Ditch Day will be, they always answer "tomorrow." Caltech is proud of the ingenuity often shown by our students in carrying this tradition and hope that you will join in participating, at least as a spectator. Faculty are welcome to take an informal tour of the houses on Ditch Day.

Thanks for your support of this activity.

Comments

Amy P said…
between this and all the fun sounding Cal Tech vs MIT pranks it's further confirmed for me that while probably just as nerdy, Rolla was no where near as cool as Cal Tech. Man...why couldn't we be that cool?!
April 7, 2010 at 9:24 PM
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