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Seal of Miskatonic University
A squid is the school's current mascot.
Miskatonic University (MU) is a highly prestigious ivy league university (but it got nothin on the University of Discordian) located in Arkham, a town in Essex County, Massachusetts. It is named after the Miskatonic River, native home of the Miskatonic River squid. According to historian H.P. Lovecraft, it and Harvard are traditionally the two most popular schools for the children of the Massachusetts “Old Gentry."
Campus
The university was originally all male which was typical of northeastern universities in the 19th and very early 20th centuries. By the early 1930s, the school had begun opening its doors to females with Asenath Waite Derby being one of the first and better known female students.
Today it is a fully coed campus and includes a number of fraternities and sororities. Fraternities include Sigma Phi, Delta Phi, and Delta Kappa Epsilon. Sororities include Gamma Delta and Kappa Alpha Theta.
Eta Mu Pi, the university's first coed fraternity, was formed by students in the early 1960s.
Schools and Departments
As of 2016, the university has four schools, Liberal Arts, Sciences, Medicine, and Business and Law.
Departments of Liberal Arts include Fine Arts, Geography, Metallurgy, English, Old English Prose and Poetry, Classical Languages, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Medieval Metaphysics, Medieval Philosophy.
For Sciences, these are Botany, Astronomy, Zoology, Geology, Principles of Paleontology, Physics, General Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Cryptozoology.
The medical school has one department, the department of Medicine.
Business and Law students study in the departments of Business or Law.
Like many universities, Miskatonic is open to approving individualized degrees.
Motto and Mascot
The official motto is "Ex Ignorantia Ad Sapientiam; Ex Luce Ad Tenebras" (Out Of Ignorance Into Wisdom; Out Of Light Into Darkness). However, others have been used, including "In Libris Libertas" (In Books There is Freedom) which appears on some university logos. "A Small Sacrifice for Knowledge" has been used unofficially by students.
The mascot changed over the years. The badger was used in early years. Currently, the mascot is the squid with teams members often referred to as the Fighting Cephalopods (as in, "Go ′Pods!").
The change likely was due to the behavior of the respective mascots. Badgers of the American prairies sometimes behaved aggressively toward students and faculty. Miskatonic prairie squid proved more congenial.
The most famous squid was Shokushufakkā, often called Bosno, which was known to J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, Connie Marsh, and Philo Drummond while they were students there. The squid was usually kept in a suspension tank in the biology lab by Dr. Raymond Cobb, but when active was known for grabbing and fondling students, especially female freshmen. For this reason, Bosno became very popular, and the squid replaced the badger.
Book collection
The university is famous for its collection of occult books. The library holds one of the very few genuine copies of the Necronomicon (most books of that title are fakeries). Other tomes include the Unaussprechlichen Kulten by Friedrich von Junzt, the fragmentary Book of Eibon, Der Librum de Vampyric Histroika and a signed copy of it translation by Dr. Sinister Craven and Toyalla into Esperanto, La libro de la historio de la vampiro (Corpsicana Press, 1976).
SubGenius
There are a number of instructors and alumni of Miskatonic that are also members of or were associated with the Church of the SubGenius. Current and former faculty include Dr. Sinister Craven (Keeper of Binky the WonderSkull (2000), Order of the Pineapple, Professor emeritus of Vampirology); William Dyer (late Professor of Geology, discoverer of Binky the WonderSkull which is the skull of one of the (PreChurch Prophets of "Bob", Mandrake Southcott XL aka JoX the Bobtist (PreChurch Prophet of "Bob",founding member of the Church of the SubGenius, Professor emeritus of English), and A O'Toole (professor of Abnormal Psychology). (Alumni include J.R. "Bob" Dobbs (attended part of one semester), Connie Marsh Dobbs (founding secretary of the Church of the SubGenius, co-founder of Home for Slackless Children)), (Dr. Philo Drummond (co-founder of the SubGenius Foundation, Keeper of Binky the WonderSkull (1976), Necromancy degree in 1977); Miley Spears (Admin of SubGenius Wikia Clench, Order of the Pineapple, Liberal Studies degree in 2016).
Sources
- Book of the SubGenius
- "The Charter of the Church of the SubGenius" (1953; from copy made in 1957)
- The Gospel According to Philo (Part 1)
- "Interview with JoX the Bobtist" by Pope Hilde & Miley Spears (2014, 2017)
- Miskatonic University website
- "Rev. Stang:IMPORTANT" from Jandlerhand Macinfanny
- "The Smoker from the Shadows" by Harry S. Robins
- Miskatonic University at Wikipedia