The Other CMUs Part 2
It’s been a week since part one of this investigation was released, and I appear to have become a bit of a celebrity on campus. My wonderful fans (median age of 48, standard deviation of 8.4 years) shower me with praise, and I’ve finally received the notoriety and admiration that I ought to have already received, considering my writing genius. A friend that went to Colorado Mesa has been sending me death threats for the past four days. A pair of twins at the dueling Chinese Medical Universities have been hexing me and now I have shingles and a lower back injury. I have fourteen finals. But enough about me, me, me. You are here for the content (what a disgusting weasel-word); I’m more than happy to provide.
Central Methodist University (centralmethodist.edu): Back on American soil at last (Fayette, Missouri). Founded by a Mr. D. Rice McAnally in 1853, this CMU is quite the trivia extravaganza, a veritable “did you know” affair. Despite what some might expect, Missouri basically remained in the Union during the American Civil War. Technically neutral at the start of the conflict, by the time Missouri secessionist government officials attempted to secede, they controlled basically none of Missouri, so most people just shrugged and moved on with their lives. “It’s just a little war, right? Who really cares what side we’re on?”
On September 24, 1864, Jesse James (before his assassination at the hands of the coward Robert Ford) and over 179 other confederate bushwackers ambushed a group of around 50 union soldiers in Fayette, Missouri, fighting up to the campus grounds of Central College (now notorious under the name Central Methodist University). Despite their strength in numbers, the confederates got their asses handed to them. Thirteen dead confederates, and they managed to only kill Thad Jackson in return. Pathetic display.
Did you know that the only Prime Minister of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia went to CMU? (Abel Muzorewa, by all accounts a great guy.) Did you know that Steinbrenner (Seinfeld Yankees guy)’s son went to CMU? Central Methodist is a D1 school, so Mongolian football (soccer) player Murun Altankhuyag went to CMU! The only Americans that have heard of Ноён Altankhuyag are degenerate sports betters with 13-leg parlays and 12-step Alcoholic Anonymous programs. Did you know that Tyler “tyler1” “not Ninja Blevins” Steinkamp played football (football) for CMU? (He’s a gamer who gets angry. Your son that never leaves his room will know who I’m talking about.) This CMU’s endowment is approximately one percent of our CMU's, but they managed to have a special CMUEagles app with a fancy green color scheme and a map “so you don’t miss the action.”
There are three components to the name. Fayette is in the Center of Missouri. According to Central Methodist, “Fayette has long been an area of education”, hence the University. ¯\ (ツ) /¯
And when CMU changed its name to Central Methodist University in 2004, Missouri had the most Meth lab busts in the country.
China Medical University (cmu.edu.cn): I don’t speak Mandarin, I prefer to do my research unaided by demonic machine translations, and I am blocked from visiting this CMU’s website. Nevertheless, I persisted. This was the first medical school founded by the Chinese Communist Party, and it encompasses an impressive 1.8 million square meters (or a significantly less impressive 0.7 square miles) in the heart of 沈阳. It was originally called Military Medical School of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, but comrade Mao Zedong had the brilliant idea to make the name less terrible, so they acquiesced. It is the second best Chinese University for clinical medicine. I’d love to evangelize CMU more, but they are trying to thwart me at every turn. I try to reach their website raw, no dice. Use a VPN, no dice. I even called their phone number (at 3:10 p.m. China time, so don’t you dare tell me they were asleep) and dialed 9 to get to their school section, but they left me on hold for longer than my 15 cent per minute Verizon international calling plan could handle. I’m calling it quits here, and would love for an intrepid adventurer to succeed me.
China Medical University(cmu.edu.tw): Like Mario and Wario, this CMU appears as a reflection of the previous, similar yet twisted. Similar website, just with a Taiwanese domain instead of Chinese. To a layman, this may seem more like a Mario and Mario situation, since the names are identical. However, the Chinese CMU is named 中国医科大学, and the Taiwanese 中國醫藥大學. Some of the characters are different. This looks to be yet another great school in a region full of great schools.
Colorado Mesa University(coloradomesa.edu): These are a bunch of posers. How are you going to stake a claim on the illustrious CMU acronym in 2011? That’s far too late to join the fight. I shouldn’t even mention the college formerly known as Grand Junction Junior College or Mesa College or even Mesa State College in this article, but I know that my Americo-centric audience would whine and moan about its lack of inclusion. I bust my balls cataloguing everything there is to know about some lesser-known institutions of more or less learning. I must applaud this CMU for their student newspaper “The Criterion.” I love its fancy-schmancy website with matching editor headshots! and dropdown menus! (gasp) Their journalism appears competent, and their April Fools issue has some heaters. I specifically liked “CMU hires renowned chemist Walter White." Their readership numbers seem rather low. Luckily, we don’t post our viewership numbers on our articles. This CMU isn’t without faults though. They are a D2 sports college, legitimately pathetic. Either be D1 with good sports, or D3 with a good school. D2 is just a mediocre sports school with a 32 percent graduation rate. It’s telling that the “Why Choose CMU?” page on their website is three tweets long. But in another life, I could see myself joining the Maverick Network as a CMU alum. The ambiance seems cozy. Hopefully someone on their newsroom name searches this article, and we’ll develop a Criterion x Tartan rivalry.
Capital Medical University (ccmu.edu.cn): This is a Chinese medical university, not to be confused with China Medical University or the other China Medical University. You’ve got to realize that there are many Chinese people (more than 80 million), and therefore many Chinese people necessitating medical care. Once you realize that there are many Chinese people, so much begins to make sense. To us, it can appear that they are running out of names, but this is purely a demonstration of the weakness of the English language, a reverse of the slaying of the Chinese Jaberwocky astoundingly performed by Doctor Yuen Ren Chao, and chronicled in a wonderful issue of “The Believer”. I however am no linguist, and again admit defeat on the Chinese issue.
Central Mindanao University (cmu.edu.ph): Known as the “Academic Paradise of the South,” this Filipino university does not disappoint. First of all, I must thank the anglophone hegemony, centuries of colonialism, and the legendary bag-fumbling of the Spanish empire, for Filipinos speaking English, and therefore letting me read their website without a dictionary by my side. I did my due diligence here, and I can confirm that this is a real, legitimate university. It was founded it 1910, and received its CMU denomination in 1965, two years before we did! They are a research university just like us, and they aren’t another goddamn medical school. CMU PE uniforms are emblazoned with “Mens sana in corpore sano.” Now I don’t speak Tagalog, but that text is actually in Latin, so I can translate it as “Sound mind in a sound body.” This CMU, unlike some others, actually cares about the mental health of its patients. CMU Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Leo Labrador expounded on this: “Bakit? Ang youth natin ngayon very oriented with the social media, parang, kahit na magkasama sila.” I’d like to see Dr. Jahanian say that.
Central Michigan University (cmich.edu): This is the big one, the big Kahuna, the real CMU. When I search CMU finals schedule, they come up. When I search CMU dining, they come up. “Oh, it says CMU dining, it must be the right link!” NO, YOU IDIOT. That’s CMICH dining, maliciously reported as being CMU dining by the frauds in Google. And I’m not jealous of their award winning student newspaper that has won the National Pacemaker Awards for best college newspaper six times since The Tartan last won. I’m not jealous of their happy students. I’m not even jealous of their location in a town literally called “Pleasant.” Because jealousy is the victim of success, and my CMU is so superior, that listing all its qualities would require 200 pages. But here’s just one bit of C(arnegie)M(ellon)U(niversity) superiority. We may not be the oldest, but our domain sure is! Always on the forefront of technological innovation, we were the first non-DARPA organization to get a .edu page! (And second to get any domain, after Symbolics.) But I’d like to rub it in. Here’s a list of all the CMU website founding dates I could gather (legally). I had to fill out so many CAPTCHAs (name coined at the real CMU btw) to get these, so just be grateful:
Carnegie Mellon (cmu.edu): 24-Apr-1985
Central Michigan University (cmich.edu): 02-May-1991
Canadian Mennonite University (cmu.ca): 15-Nov-2000
Central Methodist University (centralmethodist.edu): 20-Jul-2004
Caribbean Medical University (cmumed.org):31-Jan-2007
California Miramar University (calmu.edu): 05-Feb-2007
Colorado Mesa University (coloradomesa.edu): 08-Jul-2011
So what did we learn? Perhaps that our CMU lives, as pitiful as they may seem to us, are but specks in an ocean of horror that other CMU students reside in. Maybe we can be content with going to a top three CMU. Maybe most of the other CMUs don’t even have enough going on to fill an article. Why can’t you just be happy?