Letter from the editor
By David Taggart and Rachel Lim | October 14, 2010Karen Owens, a Duke University senior, is gaining widespread recognition for her "senior thesis," a 42-slide PowerPoint presentation entitled, "An Education Beyond the Classroom: Excelling in the Realm of Horizontal Academics," submitted for her "degree in tempestuous frolicking." In her so-called thesis, Owens ranked 13 men she slept with during her undergraduate career, using a holistic system that included factors such as "attractiveness" and even left room for goodies like "Australian accents" or "creativity in bed." Owens initially sent the PowerPoint to three of her girlfriends; however, one of them forwarded it to a friend, and that friend forwarded it to another friend, and the rest is history. In our Internet-centered age, it isn't uncommon that such stories would go "viral," and indeed Owens' PowerPoint has received national attention.
