Flunk Day

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Knox College in Galesburg, IL holds a day of flunking every year. It flunking rocks.

2011= 100 year anniversary...its going to be EPIC.

See Flunk Day 2011 for info specific to this year

FLUNK DAY IS TODAY!

Flunk Day is tomorrow.

Flunk Day is an annual event at Knox College where, by surprise, all classes are canceled. A day's worth of carnival-like activities are planned.

Great post with lots of impotarnt stuff.

Scares & Speculation

The Safety Email

At some point during every spring term, someone in the administration sends out an email with a list of safety precautions regarding the coming Flunk Day.

In 2006, the email was sent out the day before Flunk Day (some say to preempt scares) leading to rumors in 2007 that Flunk Day would happen before the safety email was sent out.

Flunk Day Scares

Most years there are one or more Flunk Day scares. Some scares are intentionally instigated and perpetuated by a student, or more commonly, a group of students. Some scares occur spontaneously, when a given date is widely rumored to be Flunk Day. Scares may be corroborated by a variety of evidence.

The earliest known flunk day scare occurred during the Flunk Day 2010 season. On September 29, 2009, three weeks into fall term student Allison Buccalo spotted tractor trailers parked outside her off-campus house. Following the sighting multiple students were found digging out the mud pit before being instructed by Campus Safety to "go to bed".

Lawn-mowing

This piece of evidence has been cited both ways. The grass being mowed the day before a candidate date has been cited as evidence as well as the grass not being mowed. Xavier Romano says they mow the grass every day, which would take care of at least half of this criterion. Lawn-mowing is also epidemiologically linked to contracting tularemia, a potentially fatal zoonotic disease caused by aerosolization of rodent remains infected with the bacterium francisella tularensis.

The Mailroom

The night before Flunk Day 2006, Union Board stuffed student mailboxes early enough that students were able to discover the items before the mailroom closed. Some say precautions will be taken in the future, but lights on a closed mailroom have been cited as evidence on at least one occasion.

Friars

In past years, evidence of friars being picked up (a van driving around campus, sudden absence of seniors) has been cited. However, for 2007, friars will be alerted the morning of Flunk Day, eliminating this criterion. In 2009, senior students were invited to be part of what was a massive Flunk Day scare but turned out to be FLUNK DAY ITSELF!! It was so clever. Two freshmen girls almost managed to pass as seniors and be Friars too, what with all of the confusion, but they were caught in time and the tradition remained sacred.

Flunk Day TKS

The staff of TKS do not know when Flunk Day will be. They try to get the Flunk Day issue of the newspaper finished early in the term so that they will be ready to distribute it when El Dia del Flunk occurs, but the completion of the paper does not indicate Flunk Day's arrival. In past years, the Flunk Day issue of TKS has not been ready on the actual date, and has had to be distributed later.

Wallace Lounge

This is the secret, secret litmus test of Flunk Day. It is such a strong indicator that I don't want to reveal it in its entirety. But once it happens, Flunk Day is tomorrow, without a doubt.

Confirming Flunk Day

The Hotline

If you don't have access to your email, you can also dial the flunk day hotline at x8008 to find out if it's Flunk day. This is not the most reliable source, however, as in both 2006 and 2007 the hotline had not changed its message by the time the campus was woken up.

Campus Safety

If you have only ever used the extension *7979 to get someone, anyone, to please unlock the door to your room, you are missing out. Though they will be reluctant, they will always answer truthfully to the question "Is it Flunk Day today?" However, they are trickier than you think. If it is not Flunk Day, they will tell you. If it is Flunk Day, they will tell you to wait for the e-mail. A good way to make the question legitimate is to say you live in the quads and that loud drunk seniors have woken you up. An excellent resource at 5 in the morning when you feel like getting muddy and Knox Wireless takes forever to load your email.

Wow! That's a rlealy neat answer!

Flunk Day Activities

Main article: Flunk Day activities

There are many traditional Flunk Day activities.

The day starts with the entire campus being waken by the Friars, a group of seniors selected to start Flunk Day. The first activity most students engage in is drinking, this usually continues through the day for many. In the morning, students enjoy a mud pit and foam pit to the sounds of a DJ. During the afternoon (usually after a nap) the lawn south of Seymour Hall has inflatable carnival games and karaoke. In past years, some students have also enjoy a bike ride to Lake Storey, though this activity was missing from the Flunk Day 2007 schedule.

All meals are served outdoors on Flunk Day.

Flunk Day Issue of The Knox Student

Main article: Flunk Day Issue 2007

Each year TKS comes out with a spoof issue of the newspaper. In 2005 and 2006, the spoof issue of the paper had not been produced yet so it was not in mailboxes the morning of as usual. In 2007, the paper was produced and printed well before May 8 and was drunkenly collected by many students. Controversy arose, however, due to the nature of the front page headline which read "Jesus Fucking Christ to speak at 2008 commencement." President Taylor, Xavier Romano, and Larry Breitborde called a meeting of the TKS editorial staff to discuss the issue. At the meeting Roger delivered a speech in which he expressed his thoughts. On the following day, he issued an email to the campus.

Controversy

General

Flunk Day is the source of much controversy because many students get very drunk. Every year, somebody (or somebodies) gets hurt and goes to the hospital. Every year, people say that Flunk Day might get canceled. The rumor spreads easily because the injuries and alcohol use are a liability for the college.

However, Knox President Roger Taylor stated in an article in The Knox Student that only about 100 people drink excessively on Flunk Day.

He is almost definitely wrong. Or his understanding of what constitutes 'excessive' drinking goes well beyond even students' standards of inebriation.

Students For Flunk Day Truth Committee

In the weeks of long anticipation leading to Flunk Day 2007 an underground committee of an undisclosed number of dedicated Knox students founded the Students For Flunk Day Truth Committee. A response to the campus-wide mass hallucination known as "Flunk Day," two harrowingly truthful documents, posted in two waves, were printed by the hundreds and posted about campus to educate the campus at large. However, as the truth came to light in the morning hours following the 3 a.m. postings of aforementioned articles, posters began to vanish in what was likely an administrative decision to silence the truth.


Flunk days past and present