Pranking perspectives explored.

In late March, the Spanish-American War cannon on the Caltech campus disappeared. Harvey Mudd College students were responsible for the first cannon heist in 1986. So, of course, Caltech called HMC and asked for the cannon back.

But HMC didn’t have it. “No one on campus had heard of it,” said Guy Gerbick, associate dean of residential life. “There were no sideways, sly smiles.”

The administration thought that a group of alumni might have swiped the cannon, intending to unveil it at the 50th Anniversary Celebration at Alumni Weekend in April. Then the cannon showed up on the MIT campus. MIT students were pranking in response to Caltech’s interference with their pre-frosh weekend during spring 2005. The theft almost exactly replicated HMC’s 1986 prank.

HMC sophomores still routinely prank the freshmen. This year, during finals week, a group of students hung hammocks in the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons, indicating that due to overcrowded housing, it might double as a dorm in the fall. But overall, HMC students have pulled fewer and fewer pranks in recent years.

Pranking has always been part of the Mudd tradition. Robert De Pietro ’69 remembers hoisting a car onto the roof of East Dorm and driving heavy equipment from the construction of South Dorm down the mall. “We didn’t have the Internet, no video games, no personal computers—we were using slide rules,” said De Pietro, who helped students rent the heavy equipment used in the 1986 cannon heist. “Many ways students have fun now didn’t exist.”

Attempts to steal the Caltech cannon began in the 1970s. A group of students finally succeeded in 1986 by posing as a construction crew. The campus went wild.

“At an engineering school, pulling a big prank is the equivalent of winning a big football game,” said David Somers ’87, one of the organizers of the heist. “If we had won the Rose Bowl, it wouldn’t have been bigger.” In contrast, HMC’s 2005 finals-week prank of the Caltech cannon is relatively unknown. Rather than attempt to remove the cannon, about a dozen Mudders built an embassy around it and claimed the territory for HMC. For one day, they offered tours of the embassy, refreshments and transfer applications.

“We had diplomatic discussions,” said “ambassador” Erik Shimshock ’06, an East Dorm proctor. “It came to a friendly conclusion.”

There is a sense that pranking is waning at Mudd. Several factors may be at work.

Like De Pietro, Somers thinks that the lack of other outlets for stress relief drove some of the pranking in Mudd’s earlier days. Since the Dean of Students Office now organizes more social activities, pranking may not be as necessary.

The campus has also become more diverse, so people are more likely to have different opinions about what is funny or acceptable. A no-prank list began in 2001 that now lists more than 200 students (about 20 percent of on-campus dwellers) who do not wish to be pranked, who will not prank themselves, or who have put restrictions on OK pranks. The list contains notations such as “don’t make anything sticky” and “don’t touch my karate gear.” Would-be prankers must confirm with a proctor that their prank will be OK with the target.

Students are also supposed to let the administration know when a large-scale prank is planned. This allows administrators to nix pranks if necessary but also to smooth the way, such as by making sure that the Facilities and Maintenance Department doesn’t dismantle the prank prematurely. But some believe this eliminates spontaneity. “If you have to go get approval to do something, it doesn’t have the same feel,” Somers remarked.

Shimshock disagreed. “Most big pranks are not very spontaneous. They take lots of planning. And it’s easy for people to check the no-prank list,” he said. Shimshock attributes the decrease in pranking to something very simple: HMC’s workload.
“The frosh come in very enthusiastic and with ideas about pranks, but the upperclassmen discourage them and tell them they won’t have time,” Shimshock said. “People don’t have time for big, fun projects.”

Whatever the reason for the decline, many Mudders would like to see pranking increase again.

“It’s a little sad not to see large scale pranks like we used to,” Gerbick said. “It would be nice. We wouldn’t mind.”

Linley Erin Hall '01 is a chemistry graduate and freelance writer who fondly remembers getting back at the North Dorm sophomores who draped her sheets around the courtyard in 1997.