On Dec. 8, computer science and engineering Professor Dr. Tim Davis got the surprise of his life. On a take-home quiz given to his sophomore class, “Discrete Structures for Computing,” the previous Friday, Davis noted that the students may not receive outside help. Just for fun, he added one exception on the quiz: “You may request assistance from Revellie VIII. If she attends class on Monday, Dec. 8, then everyone attending class on that day gets 100 percent on this quiz. Really.” When he walked into his classroom that day, there she was. It was a complete surprise, but he stayed true to his word.
“To be honest, it wasn't the fact that we would get a 100 percent on our last quiz of the semester that made me delighted, but the fact that my professor, who just moved to College Station, would be able to experience one of A&M's great traditions in his very own lecture,” said student, Alyssa Valdez.
Davis joined the CSE faculty in June of this year. Although he is new to Texas A&M, he feels a special connection to the university mascot and First Lady of Aggieland, Miss Reveille. Davis’ family dog as a child was a Rough Collie named Frederick, and his recently passed pup, Macaulay, was a Sheltie who remarkably resembled the beloved breed. These two dogs had a significant impact on Davis’ life and his love for dogs, notably Collies, has stuck with him throughout his life.
Davis went even further with his Reveille-themed quiz. On one question, the students were asked to create a finite state automaton. Even though these are usually expressed with ones and zeroes, Davis decided to keep with his theme and use “woof, bark, and whine” instead. While injecting some humor to his quiz, he still kept the integrity of the material intact. In a fun twist of events, her actions while in the classroom coincided with the automaton Davis had created for the quiz.
Reveille has walked and lived among the students of Texas A&M for more than 70 combined years and continues to be one of the students’ and faculty’s most loved traditions.
“This story is not about me," Davis said. "This story is about Reveille. She is warm and welcoming and represents Texas A&M University in the most accurate way."
———
More on this story at http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/A-M-mascot-Reveille-VIII-helps-computer-science-5968822.php.