By Matthew Waxman
On campus, the geek is chic again. It's finals time, when a look through your spiral-bound notebook reveals nothing but a few proposed fantasy trades and a list of the people you hooked up with this year. The snot-nose kid with the color-coordinated class notes (and affinity for Jar Jar Binks figurines) is suddenly the most popular kid in school. Elsewhere in Geek Week, opera is making a comeback, a Trekkie gets the girl, and a college is only 1,277 votes from renaming itself Jedi Academy.
 | Wisconsin-Milwaukee's James Wright wears the name across his chest with pride. Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images |
Hot: Tufts University opera
Tonya and Nancy: The Opera about figure skating's most iconic rivals was performed last week in Harvard Square. "It can't help being absurd and funny because of the situation," the opera's creator, Tufts student Abigail Al-Doory, told the Boston Globe. "But it's serious." Not in attendance: Nancy Kerrigan. "I lived it," said the silver medalist. "What do I need to watch it for?"
Not: Southern Methodist University opera
Grad students at SMU and the Dallas Opera have paired together to put on modern, socially relevant performances, including one program that educates young children about "stranger danger," the presence of internet predators. What's next? "The Phantom of the Laptop?"
Hot: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Last week, 1,286 students at UWM voted to maintain the school's name despite concerns that the hyphen makes it look like a satellite of the University of Wisconsin (Madison). Other names that received consideration included Wisconsin State University (804 votes); Milwaukee State University (82); Milwaukee University (28) and Jedi Academy (10).
Not: University of Illinois
The men's tennis team, despite a seventh overall seed, will be forced to travel to Louisville to play Western Illinois because the NCAA executive committee refused to remove Chief Illiniwek from its list of "hostile and abusive" mascots. Schools with mascots deemed inappropriate by the NCAA are ineligible to host postseason athletic tournaments.
Hot: J.J. Abrams
When asked by Howard Stern if he got lucky in college, the director of Mission: Impossible III and the next Star Trek movie responded, "About four hundred percent more than if I went to USC." Abrams, a self-proclaimed Star Wars geek, who also created Lost, Alias and Felicity, attributed his success to Sarah Lawrence College's 30-to-70 male-to-female ratio.
Not: Nerds
Despite the lack of critical success for The Honeymooners and Guess Who remakes, it was announced that the Tri-Lams of Adams College will get another shot at revenge in a remake of the 1984 geek tragedy. The previous week, the University of Minnesota's pocket protector set attended the fifth annual Geek Prom held this year at the Science Museum of Minnesota for those who never got to experience the real thing in high school. Said Jon Lee, founder of the event, which included stations for handwriting analysis and cow-eye dissection, "If you're a nerd, you're a geek, but you might not be a geek if you're a nerd. It's cool to be a geek, but not a nerd."
Hot: Poker sharks
University of Oregon professor Paul Engelking argued for disallowing laptops in the classroom because students, among other things, were using the school's wireless connection to play poker on-line.
Not: Autograph hounds
Alabama football coach Mike Shula was forced to switch churches because the members of his old church were looking for autographs getting overly aggressive according to the Greg Larson radio show. Supposedly, one devotee even waited at the end of the communion line with a football for Shula to sign.
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