Did you know?
100 years ago, Dec. 4, 1907
The Tartan includes a paper ballot that students can use to vote for the most handsome male at Carnegie Tech. Paper ballots? Really? In the 21st century, we’d probably just set up an online poling system... which would eventually crash and lose everyone’s votes.
50 years ago, Dec. 10, 1957
An article called “Plucky? Attend Night School” sheds some light on Carnegie Tech’s evening classes. Juggling classes and a day job, most night students are interested in studying to further their careers, with some employers even willing to foot the bill. Still, some come for other reasons: One student said, “I figured it was cheaper to go here than to take my wife’s folks to the movies every evening.”
25 years ago, Dec. 7, 1982
The Tartan prints a piece called “A CMU Christmas Carol,” written by the student government president, who sounds like he needs to lay off the eggnog. In the story, administrative geezer Ebineezer Sighert is visited by Dickens’s classic three ghosts, the last of which shows him a grim future where he is replaced by an IBM computer, the PRESIVAC.
10 years ago, Nov. 25, 1997
A fire in the Cyert Center halts campus computing for three terrifying hours, leaving Carnegie Mellon students utterly unable to communicate. A Tartan article reports that the fire was caused by a hot dog that exploded in the microwave.
5 years ago, Dec. 9, 2002
The Carnegie Mellon chief of police apologizes to Sigma Nu for an impromptu search of the fraternity’s house. In order to get all of the boys out of the house, the chief executed the first “unscheduled fire drill” of his career, activating Sigma Nu’s fire alarm without first informing the fraternity.
1 year ago, Dec. 4, 2006
A Tartan article celebrates a student-born project called the Teaser Calendar, featuring the photographs of 12 of Carnegie Mellon’s sexiest lady students. According to the article, the calendar aims to dispel the myth that Carnegie Mellon students are all ugly — now we know at least 12 of them aren’t.