Tennessee Professor Hid Cash Prize On Campus To See If Students Read His Syllabus, No One Found It

An educator at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga came up with a creative way to see if his students read his syllabus. At the beginning of the semester, Kenyon Wilson placed a $50 bill in a locker. He hid the combination in the course outline for his music seminar class.

“Thus (free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five), students may be ineligible to make up classes and …” he wrote, according to CNN.

While it’s common knowledge that the syllabus doesn’t change much from semester to semester, Wilson made a point of telling his students there was some new information to review. And with COVID-19 protocols, he wasn’t lying.  

“It an academic trope that no one reads the syllabus,” the professor told CNN. “It’s analogous to the terms and conditions when you’re installing software. Everyone clicks that they’ve read it when no one ever does.”

Wilson included a note in the locker that read, “Congrats! Please leave your name and date, so I know who found it.” He also left the combination with a specific number in the noon position. It would be a dead giveaway if someone attempted the lock. 

But at the end of the semester, after final exams were done, Wilson found the $50 bill as he had left it. The combination lock was never even turned. Not one of his 71 students had discovered the treasure hunt hidden with the syllabus. 

The associate head of performing arts said his students have been “good sports” about it, noting it was all in good fun. 

“I honestly thought it was hilarious,” student Haley Decker told the outlet. “This class typically is the same format every semester, so students know what to expect and don’t take the time to read the syllabus like we should.”

At the end of the day, Wilson said he knows his students read, and he doesn’t expect them to read the syllabus in its entirety. But in this case, if they did, they would have been pleasantly surprised.