Hail to Thee, Okoboji U!
Edited by Mark Ebersole
Fordham University Press, 1992
ISBN: 0-8232-1383-8
316 pages
Maureen Connolly,  Elmhurst College,IL
hen you find that a major research project,
a comprehensive exam, and an internship interview
are all scheduled for the same day, you may pose the
questions: Why is college no longer fun? Can anything
in higher education ever be fun?

College fun can be found in a book. A book??? But books are part
of the problem! This is not necessarily true, especially if you
consider the book Hail to Thee, Okoboji U!(a college which never
considers tuition raises) edited by Mark Ebersole.

This book is dedicated to humor found in the ivory tower of higher
education. For example, the catalog of Aquarius U. describes Basic
English as discussing the concept of "neatness counts" among others.
The major project for an economics course is a cooperative learning
experience in creating an essay on "The Need to Repeal the Industrial
Revolution."

You can learn a new version of American history. Columbus, as he
sailed from Spain, turned right; thus, he became the first one to use
the phrase "Right on!" Inventors include Samuel Morse who developed
his own code to replace the Code of the West. The Civil War should
really be the Un-Civil War because both sides were rude to each other.

You will be introduced to Professor Primrose who, in mistaking
"Pelman" for "Pullman", becomes a train porter. And there is Professor
Gratt who hopes to become a vice-president of the college "in Charge
of This or That." Dr. Slezak, a genetics researcher, plans to blend
a human gene with a coffee gene with the result that man will no
longer crave coffee. He will have a built-in caffeine gene.

Selected authors range from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. to Woody Allen to
James Thurber.

There are more than 100 essays, cartoons, and poems - all on the
subject of higher education, all with a lighthearted look at the
topic. This book is enough to brighten anyone's day!