Alice at the University was a weekly satirical comic strip which ran in the University of Minnesota Daily during the 1986-'87 and 1992-'93 school years. Alice poked fun at fraternities, pilloried politicians and lampooned the lives and issues of the U of M and the nation.

Alice was inspired by an earlier strip, The Death of Rasputin. This had cast the mad Russian philosopher, thawed from a block of Siberian ice, into the bureaucratic cesspool which is the University of Minnesota. Further inspiration was drawn from Disney's "Mad Tea Party" segment of its Alice in Wonderland movie, which resembled a meeting of the U of M Board of Regents.

Alice was never at a loss for material. The 1986-'87 year featured nutty professor-turned-president Ken Keller. Keller had been named Interim President following the resignation of C. Peter McGrath, and declared himself ineligible for the permanent Presidency. The fun began when he was subsequently nominated to and accepted the position as President of the University of Minnesota. Protests and lawsuits * were just the beginning of Ken's madcap presidency, which included BMW's, $9000 desks and $6000 credenzas, and a multi-million-dollar slush fund discovered in the midst of a University financial crisis... Not that there is ever a time when the Regents of the University of Minnesota can't find a financial crisis by which to justify tuition increases.

From his "Commitment to Focus" plan to his investment in Strategic Defense Initiative research at the U of MN, President Keller persisted in one-upping his own absurd record. When the University, noted for the quality of its own graphic design school, spent $100,000 for an outside agency to create a new University logo (remember: tuition increases, ongoing budget crises, etc) the design was so well-received that the whole idea was thrown away along with the money.

President Keller was history by the time of Alice's second incarnation, but there was still plenty of controversy. Bland, harmless and charming, new president Nils Hasselmo allocated all his dirty work to V.P. Ettore "Call Me Jim" Infante, who changed his name just for the job. The duo proceeded to tear down Memorial Stadium (does anyone remember Memorial Stadium?), tried to turn a prized children's library into a conference room, and attempted to sell all University computer facilities to Infante's chums in the Minnesota Supercomputer Center.  Not surprisingly, only five years later, the University has backed a bill calling for a half-billion-dollar new Stadium.

Hopefully this brief history lends context to your review of Alice at the University.