University Of Tennessee Professor Put Clues To A Cash Prize In His Syllabus. No One Noticed.

New York Times, Professor Put Clues to a Cash Prize in His Syllabus. No One Noticed.:

Kenyon Wilson, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, wanted to test whether any of his students fully read the syllabus for his music seminar.

Of the more than 70 students enrolled in the class, none apparently did.

Professor Wilson said he knows this because on the second page of the three-page syllabus he included the location and combination to a locker, inside of which was a $50 cash prize.

“Free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five,” read the passage in the syllabus. But when the semester ended on Dec. 8, students went home and the cash was unclaimed.

“My semester-long experiment has come to an end,” Mr. Wilson wrote on Facebook, adding: “Today I retrieved the unclaimed treasure.” ...

Tanner Swoyer, a senior studying instrumental music education, said that he felt “pretty dumb, pretty stupid” when he saw the professor’s post about the money in the locker, which was in the fine arts center.