Prank Fails, but UCI Engineers Still Graduate

Sections of two 20-foot-long poles and a long paper banner with a complicated equation scrawled across it were smuggled under graduation gowns and assembled by engineering students in secret Saturday as a UC Irvine commencement day prank.

But the stunt, intended to poke fun at the grade-point average of biological science majors, backfired on the future engineers when one of the poles snapped and the banner fell on the heads of its makers.

“It was supposed to be a burn on bio,” said UCI junior Cathy Stites as she looked over the crumpled banner lying in a heap. “Too bad nobody saw it. It’s really great.”

It’s the type of prank that people have come to expect at a UCI commencement, since in its 25-year history the school has garnered a worldwide reputation as one of the best institutions for scientific research and engineering.

On Saturday, about 30,000 people gathered at the university’s Aldrich Park to witness UCI’s 25th commencement exercise, an event that marked the beginning of a yearlong silver anniversary celebration.

In three shifts, most of this year’s 4,486 graduates crowded into the park in the center of the campus to commemorate the end of years of late-night study, mind-bending research and crushing final exams.

“Twenty-five years is very young for a university,” UCI Chancellor Jack Peltason said in his commencement address. “Just as you are the beneficiary of the vision of those who planned and built this university, so you are participating in the planning and building of the next 25 years of UCI.”

Graduates of the school’s engineering, biological sciences, physical sciences, fine arts, humanities, information and computer sciences, social ecology and social sciences programs received degrees. Graduates of UCI’s graduate school of management received their degrees in a separate ceremony elsewhere on campus.

In all, 3,487 students were conferred bachelor’s degrees, 608 received master’s degrees, 299 were “hooded” with doctoral degrees and 92 were given medical degrees.

The basic premise of science was the theme of the morning student speaker, C. Douglas Hunter, who repeatedly told fellow graduates that when they make a mistake, “figure out what happened, learn from it and don’t let it happen again.”

Soon Hunter had most graduates reciting that line with him each time he gave another example of the setbacks they can expect in the professional world.

“If you go into industry and you don’t meet your deadline,” he said, and in unison the graduates spontaneously chanted with him, “figure it out, learn from it and don’t let it happen again.”

In his commencement speech, Peltason praised the university’s multicultural student population, which contains a large number of Third World students.

“We need to remind ourselves that UCI has a major role in the new culture of California and the United States,” Peltason said, urging students of all races to “learn from each other and build on the values we all share. . . .

“Our country has a tradition of hospitality to those from other shores,” Peltason said. “Look at our college campuses and you see the face of the future.

“It is a different face from the present and it will reflect a global rather than a European perspective,” he said.

Indeed, said UCI spokeswoman Betty Tessman, deans were coached before commencement through a list of unfamiliar names they were scheduled to read.

One name, although simple to pronounce, proved the most embarrassing of the day for Vice Chancellor Horace Mitchell.

“Bart Simpson,” Mitchell called out as he read the name on a 3x5 card handed to him by one graduate.

Bart Simpson is the name of a well-known cartoon character who has raised controversy because of the character’s pride in being an underachiever.

The prankster, Christopher Lee Marx, who replaced his name on the card with the name of Bart Simpson, however, is far from an underachiever. An engineering and physics major, Marx earned a bachelor of science degree cum laude.

“Every once in a while they get you,” Mitchell said, realizing his mistake when hearty laughter broke throughout the audience.

A planned protest by the Social Awareness Collective, which opposes plans to build a chancellor’s residence on environmentally sensitive land, did not materialize, but members passed out flyers asking graduates to send letters of opposition to the chancellor. The group contends that the proposed residence would upset the nesting site of the California gnatcatcher, a small bird that is classified as “sensitive” by the state and federal governments.

Good-natured pranks from the ranks of the graduates continued to vex campus police and administrators who were hoping for a staid ceremony.

Instead of pomp and circumstance, graduates in black caps and gowns threw brightly colored beach balls, set off smoke bombs and jeered at graduates from rival departments.

From time to time, graduates--apparently tired of sitting on lawn chairs for two hours--created human “waves,” by standing up, waving their arms and sitting down in succession.

After the 9 a.m. ceremony, one biological sciences major gloated over the failed prank by rival engineers.

“Those engineers are geeks,” said Omid Vafa, who wore a blue tassel that signified he was being recognized for excellence in a research project with the Beckman Laser Institute. “They (engineers) don’t get out. What can I say?”