The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 8, 1988-- Page 13 STUDENT LIFE BY ROB EARLE Slowly the line of orientees shuffles to a stop in front of the Dental School building. With name tags on breast and colored folders in hand, the eager, young Wolverines- to-be wait anxiously for the perky and freshly-scrubbed orientation leader to impart yet another tidbit of University lore. "The dental building was con- structed to resemble a tooth," the leader drones knowingly. And, for the next four years, the students will cock their heads, squint their eyes, and go crazy trying to figure out how anyone could ever think the building looks like a tooth. It doesn't. It also doesn't look like a mouth when lit up at night. It's just a building. ORIENTATION leaders are not the only purveyors of campus myths and legends, although most students' 'first exposure to the lore of the -maize and blue comes during their first few summer days under the !University's tutelage. Of course, new students should be careful to distinguish between misinformation and just-plain-leg- ends. A typical gem of misinformation Michigan Myths What they did tell you at orientation is the so-called suicide clause. Ac- cording to this myth, roommates of students who commit suicide receive an automatic 3.0 grade point average for the term, presumably to com- pensate for the emotional stress. Another version grants the room- mate a 4.0. Both versions are bunk, say University officials, although students are not prohibited from making individual arrangements with professors or departments. ANOTHER just-plain-legend surrounds the big "M" in the Diag. According to the legend, students who step on the "M" before taking their first exam at the University are bound to fail the exam. Other apocryphal versions of the story say you will flunk out of the University entirely if you step on the "M," and there is an ongoing de- bate about whether the curse applies to all exams or only to finals - so new students are best advised to dodge the "M" (as well as Diag bik- ers) for their entire first terms. And do those lions outside the exhibit museums really roar when- ever a virgin passes between them? Unlikely, or things would really get loud when the daily platoons of ele- mentary school students come in for tours. Or maybe the real version is the one that says the lions roar whenever a virgin graduates from the Univer- sity. The teller of this tale is bound to smirk and say, "That's why no- body has ever heard them roar." SPEAKING OF lions, there are no cougars roaming around the Arb, at least according to the safety officials. Or any kind of big cat, for that matter. But that doesn't mean scary stuff isn't going on. Campus security guards will swear up-and-down by the Story of the Flying Book. A guard on break in the Rackham Building said his book was lifted off a table and dropped to the floor by an unseen force, presumably one of the residents of the cemetery that once occupied the land beneath the build- ing. The same guards will insist an entirely different set of ghosts inhabits the Frieze Building, right next door. These spooks come from the morgue located in the building when it was used for medical re- search, legend says. But there really are underground steam tunnels large enough to run around in connecting most Univer- sity buildings. Many have alarm systems, especially in the areas sur- rounding the various museums. And while you probably won't be "automatically expelled" if you are caught down there, you will have a lot of explaining to do. Workers in the Fleming building had to use them to get around a blockade by anti-racist activist groups last year. THOUGH LEGEND says it, no University officials could confirm whether the Fleming Building was originally designed with a moat. It is PASS IT AROUND! true the windows were constructed to disguise the offices behind them, presumably to confuse protesters throwing objects from the ground. The one-and-a-half ton spinning cube in Regents Plaza must - ac- cording to legend - be spun by the University president each morning to start the "University generator." No- body really knows if former Univer- sity President Harold Shapiro spun the cube in front of the Fleming Building for luck on his way to work each morning, although the people who spread this story also claimed to have seen Shapiro getting an order to go from Taco Bell the night before. Whatever the truth to that rumor. it's almost certain former Interim President Robben Fleming did not spin the cube. And will new Presi- dent James Duderstadt spin it? We'll probably never know - nobody else gets up that early. NOT ONLY is the UniveresiLy not powered by the cube, it's not powered by a nuclear reactor on North Campus, either. There is' a nuclear reactor on North Campus, but it's not even powerful enough'to keep itself going. True is the legend that the Uni- versity has an alumni association chapter on the moon. The three Apollo 15 astronauts - Jim Irwin, Dave Scott, and Al Worden founded the chapter in 1971. And, of course, Bo Schembechler is not just a legend; he really exists. Larger than life perhaps, but no Iess real for that. ROBIN LOZNAK/D'0ly I t~E~i U I * Birt - comple " Cookies -fresh and irt " "Thinking of PARENT " An easy way to sh how much you ca DORM DELIVE ;hday Cakes ?te party in a bag! s tact! f You" care packa 1st J low re! 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