What happens if a university burns down? The academic urban legend has resurfaced amid the coronavirus pandemic.
We love a juicy urban legend as much as the subsequent person, but the coronavirus pandemic seems to have impressed a resurgence of death and destruction-related ones. For instance, a widespread myth these days floating round the web has to do with universities and what would occur if one burned down. Pretty darkish, right?
This specific state of affairs is one among a few filed under the "Pass by catastrophe" class of urban legends, which proposes a series of tragic events that will automatically allow a pupil to move all in their categories. Confused? Let’s break it down.
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What happens if a university burns down?
According to legend (the origins of that are unknown), if a university were to burn down, or be destroyed in in a different way, all present scholars would instantly graduate with a bachelor's degree.
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There are a couple of main problems with this concept, the first being that most universities cover acres of land and include dozens, if no longer hundreds, of constructions, so it’d be nearly not possible to burn down an entire campus unless you will have the code to a nuclear bomb.
The second issue we have with this myth is the assumption that a college would get rid of its entire pupil frame in the wake of a huge tragedy. As observed in previous instances of natural disasters and university shootings, academic institutions don't abandon their scholars. They offer up more secure choices.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005, Tulane University was pressured to cancel its fall semester after sustaining greater than $650 million in damages. At the time, university president Scott Cowen encouraged students to take categories at other faculties whilst they labored to clean up the campus.
In the case of the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, right through which a scholar killed 32 folks and wounded 17 others, the faculty suspended classes for just one week, but did give scholars the way to abbreviate their coursework and still obtain a grade. The scholars who died in the attack have been all granted posthumous degrees.
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A faculty administrator in the past debunked the university fantasy.
In a actually inspiring piece for the Valdosta State University newspaper, a body of workers author actually requested the college’s president of scholar affairs, Dr. Vincent Miller, what VSU would do if its campus burned down.
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"The college experience is most certainly tied to the physical structure of the building, but as we know, changing education, online courses, and distance learning has made earning a college degree more flexible from anywhere," Miller stated.
"If the campus was to burn, we would likely seek alternate ways and locations to instruct courses, including facilities that might be for rent to continue teaching classes," he added. "VSU is also a part of a larger higher education system in Georgia, and we share resources from anywhere possible."
Miller concluded, "A college degree is earned by passing all of the number of classes determined to earn the degree. That’s the only way I know to get a degree, regardless of how and where you get it."
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