Survey Results #18: Is this part of the freshman studies program?

We asked you, “if you could only do one thing for fifty hours, what would it be?”

The most popular answer was sleep…although one person added that it was only so that she could do many things in the next fifty hours. A good number of you responded with musical or athletic activities. Many of you expressed your interest to read several books, watch a marathon of movies, or even, according to one person, “watch one episode of America’s Next Top Model.” (One episode?! For 50 hours?)

One person wanted to jump on a trampoline. Another wanted to count dollar bills, with the ability to keep all the money he had counted after fifty hours. Yet another said, “over fifty hours? Get tired of whatever it is!” Someone, who is apparently very suspicious, said, “This question makes me nervous. Is this part of the freshman studies program?”

No – although you can get more information about freshman studies here.

Finally – one person seemed to catch on to what we were asking about, by responding “play a Midwest trivia contest.”

Trivia, as you will come to call it this January, is a non-stop 50-hour marathon of meaningless, useless trivia that will have you Googling the oddest phrases imaginable, calling people throughout the country, and running to the internet radio station to win points in the strangest “action question” you could imagine.

Once, teams were asked to produce a pound of human hair…and they did. (The winning team went to the dumpster of a hair salon.)

You can check out the student-maintained trivia site.

Or, read the “official” Lawrence University perspective of this tradition.

Despite what you may think now…there’s a strong chance you’ll find yourself drinking an energy drink at 4:00 am Saturday morning trying to figure out what Frank Zappa’s Fire Prevention Week poster said when he was in ninth grade.

Survey Results #4 – I See Your True Colors…

Our apologies for titling this blog after a song from 1991 (or a personality test, depending on your perspective). Still, we wanted to tell you a little bit about Lawrence’s traditions before you arrive, including class colors. (Check out our longest and most popular traditions.)

These traditions include information about our coat of arms, school songs, the organs in the chapel and even a big, huge rock. But you’ll also be able to read about the tradition of class colors.

Beginning in 1914, Milwaukee Downer College (which merged with Lawrence College in 1964 to create Lawrence University) began transferring a red, green, yellow or purple banner to the incoming freshman class. The tradition continues today, with each incoming class receiving their official banner from the alumni association.

While we can’t yet reveal your official class color – that happens at the President’s welcome on September 8th – we thought it would be interesting to see which of the four colors your class liked the best. (Note: this does not have an impact on the class color you will receive!)

The results were:

1 – Green, with 39.9%

2 – Purple, with 30.9%

3 – Red, with 20.2%

4 – Yellow, with 9.0%

For the record, blue is not generally considered one of the available colors, as blue and white are the official school colors.

As of yet, there’s no explanation for the absence of orange…any ideas?