<p>In your experience, what is the most unusual physical fixture at a insitiute of higher learning? Georgia Tech has a massive water slide, UMDCP has a bowling alley, a college in the Midwest used to have the largest Mary-go-round in the world. The more atypical the better! (Feel free to add any unusual traditions)</p>
<p>Wait, my college has a bowling alley (and arcade). Is that unusual?</p>
<p>I can only speak for the urban northeast, but I think that is highly uncommon. Does UC Davis have anything else interesting? A bowling alley is just not something I associate with colleges. Thought of another, Georgetown is littered with underground tunnels.</p>
<p>Hmm, we’re an agricultural school so we have cows, horses, sheep, etc. on campus. I was able to see cows from my dorm room last year!</p>
<p>Attached to East Carolina University’s library is a feature called the “Sonic Plaza”. The entrance to it is adorned with a series of white pillars, each fitted with a motion sensor. When someone walks between the pillars, the pillars (which are also fitted with small speakers) make various chiming sounds.</p>
<p>Inside the plaza is a large waterwall which alternates between various patterns of falling water. Next to the waterwall is a small clocktower called the “Media Glockenspiel”. It chimes every hour and is fitted with a ring of television monitors. Throughout the day, the monitors run graphic animations that are designed by ECU’s art students. Sitting at the center of the ring of monitors is a pair of shutter doors, which open four times a day to reveal a statue, accompanied by music.</p>
<p>Lying on the outskirts of the Sonic Plaza is a feature called the Ground Cloud Well. It is essentially a manhole-like structure in the ground, from which mist rises. On breezy days the mist is blown all across the perimeter, dousing the Sonic Plaza in a thick fog.</p>
<p>As far as unusual traditions go, there is a cupola lying in the center of ECU’s campus quad. Legend goes that if you walk under the cupola at any point while an East Carolina student, you will not graduate on time.</p>
<p>What about unusual mascots?</p>
<p>UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs
UC Irvine Anteaters
Rhode Island School of Design <a href=“link%20to%20mascot%20article”>url=http://www.risd.edu/About/News/Scrotie_Responds/</a></p>
<p>Oxford College of Emory University is probably the most unusual “feature” of any school in the country. Basically it’s a two year selective LAC on Emory’s original campus. The school features its own admissions department, student government, athletic teams, etc. After two years, students automatically “continue” onto the main Atlanta campus. </p>
<p>Also Emory’s unofficial mascot is Dooley the Skeleton, who escaped from a biology classroom and writes limericks for the student newspaper. He also boasts the power to dismiss classes, and in Oxford playfully calls students out for supposed transgressions.</p>
<p>Wow, RISD. I never thought that that link would be minorly NSFW.
Dooley the skeleton is entertaining, and East Carolina is as good at strangeness as at football. Whenhe, nice pitch for Oxford at Emory there, it was quite clever</p>
<p>UC Davis has a bowling alley and arcade? Holy **** that’s awesome lol :)</p>
<p>While I have North Carolinian colleges on my mind: UNC Charlotte has its own university SWAT team; I’m not sure how common this is, but it seemed strange to me. Also, UNC Charlotte’s student union features a hair salon. </p>
<p>Another tradition (not particularly “weird”, but interesting) belongs to NC State. Every year they hold the Krispy Kreme challenge. It’s basically a race where each competitor eats a few pounds of KK donuts, then runs about a mile down the road to the school bell tower (trying to supress vomiting the whole way there).</p>
<p>Reed College has a [nuclear</a> reactor](<a href=“http://reactor.reed.edu/index.html]nuclear”>Reed Research Reactor - Reed College), even though it has no nuclear engineering department or graduate students.</p>
<p>Other campuses with nuclear reactors are listed here: [Nuclear</a> Research Reactor location list](<a href=“http://www.nukepills.com/research-reactor-list.htm]Nuclear”>Nuclear Research and Test Reactors in the USRadiation Emergency Protection Supplies)</p>
<p>At UVa there is a statue of Homer at one end of the 740 feet long Lawn (designed by Mr. Jefferson). At times, at night, it has been popular to streak the length of the Lawn, kiss Homer’s butt, and then run back. </p>
<p>The Dean of the Students one night saw some nude guys walking slowly back from the Homer statue, and told them “The difference between streaking and indecent exposure is haste.”</p>
<p>The University of Pennsylvania has the Penn Museum, which has a large collection of Egyptian mummies. Nearby is the Mutter Museum, which is full of medical specimens and preserved tumors from the 1800s.</p>
<p>I really loved the Randy Pausch memorial bridge at Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>UMiami has lots of ibises hanging out around campus…it’s pretty cool to have lots of real-life mascots chilling around :D</p>
<p>St Mary’s has a bell that rings every hour and half hour and is so loud that it can be heard across the entire campus. It also has the reproduction of the ship that brought the first colonists to Maryland.
The tradition I found the most interesting was the “Ponding” Tradition. Every year on your birthday, you get thrown into St. John’s Pond</p>
<p>Rutgers just opened up their own full-fledged movie theater</p>
<p>IU has an art museum with no 90 degree angles, a bowling alley, a pool hall, and a hair salon on campus. We also have a huge 800 mHz magnet buried between 2 of the chemistry research buildings. The clocks play music–the IU fight song/alma mater and other culturally/seasonally appropriate songs (holiday music, the Beatles, You are My Sunshine).</p>
<p>Oh, and can’t forget the 2 cemeteries and chapel on campus</p>
<p>I don’t go to Stanford but I’m aware of two unusual things they have there: a particle accelerator, and a conservative/libertarian think tank.</p>
<p>Apparently UC Davis also has a few underground tunnels.</p>
<p>And can’t forget the eggheads.</p>
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