Parody: the sincerest form of flattery?

You may have read on this blog about our university‘s campaign to introduce our new name — Missouri University of Science and Technology — to various audiences. We call it the hello campaign, and it features brief video clips introducing students, alumni, faculty and staff.

The campaign is now the subject of a parody by a group of enterprising students. (Enterprising in the truest sense, as they’ve created a t-shirt business poking fun at the university.) Here’s the video they’ve posted in response to the campaign.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/REccpS1cScY" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

If I were wearing my official university spokesperson hat, I wouldn’t be sharing this. But this is a personal blog, so what the heck. I love parody in all its forms, so I tip my hat to these guys.

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Campus incidents push ‘to taze’ into the popular lexicon

Higher education can take a bow for its role in helping to push the runner-up word of the year into the spotlight.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s news blog, “to taze’ is the runner-up word of the year for the New Oxford American Dictionary. As the news blog points out, the verb’s rise owes much to two controversial campus incidents — one at the University of Florida and another at UCLA.

The dictionary chose “locavore” as its 2007 word of the year. The term “refers to a movement that encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food.”

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Now playing: Fleetwood Mac – Second Hand News
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Now playing: Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
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