Challenge yourself to Tom's Trivia!

See if you know as much as King of UConn Trivia and University Deputy Spokesperson Tom Breen '00 (CLAS).

Scroll to the bottom to reveal the answers.

From 2003 through 2008, UConn held commencement ceremonies in December for students who graduated that month and the previous August. What was the main reason for bringing this experiment to an end?

A: Unpredictable winter weather
B: The cost of having commencement twice a year
C: An inability to get prominent speakers for midyear ceremonies
D: The difficulty of scheduling events in Gampel Pavilion during basketball season

In November 1996, the University opened a revamped Quick Copy Center to help students and faculty with printing and photocopying needs. What was the most prominent new feature of the center?

A: The ability to make color photocopies
B: The ability to pay for copies by card instead of cash
C: Internet connectivity
D: A coffee bar

In 2018, the UConn School of Social Work became the first in Connecticut to do what?

A: Offer bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs
B: Have a location in downtown Hartford
C: Boast its own flavor of Dairy Bar ice cream
D: Establish a TikTok account

The UConn Botanical Conservatory saw 2,000 people visit the corpse flower “Bullseye” that bloomed in April. What made a previous UConn corpse flower bloom — in 2004 — so extraordinary?

A: It had no discernible odor
B: It had bloomed just two years earlier
C: It was the first corpse flower to bloom in the Northeast in 70 years
D: Its odor was extreme, even by corpse flower standards

A group of people stand in front of a large corpse flower in bloom, one man is taking photos on his cell phone.

“Bullseye,” the first UConn corpse flower to bloom in a decade.

Answers

1: B Explaining the decision, then-President Hogan cited costs, including staff time, facilities expenses, and printing costs. However, weather was also a factor: the ceremony in December 2007 had to be canceled because of a snow and ice storm.

2: C When the Quick Copy Center opened, it boasted “high-tech services” that included the ability to print from a disk or, for the first time, the World Wide Web. In those paper-intensive days, University Printing Services was making more than 1 million copies per month.

3: A Fall 2018 saw the first 25 students enroll in the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) program, making UConn the first institution of higher ed in Connecticut to offer three degree programs in social work. The School of Social Work’s move from West Hartford to downtown Hartford happened a year earlier.

4: C The last time a corpse flower, with its fly-attracting stench, had bloomed in the Northeast was in the 1930s at the New York Botanical Gardens. More than 10,000 people saw — and smelled — UConn’s 2004 bloom.

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