The Kellogg School of Management is investigating alleged drunken misdeeds at a party at Chicago’s Field Museum, but has not yet punished the students involved or confirmed the details of the event, a Kellogg spokesperson said Monday.
Though the Vice President of the Kellogg Student Association, Andrea Hanson, described various sordid acts — including throwing things at Sue, the museum’s $8.3 million Tyrannosaurus Rex — as taking place at the Sept. 26 ball, she wasn’t at the event herself, said Meg Washburn, Kellogg’s Director of Media Relations.
Students at the party told Hanson the information that she wrote in the letter, Washburn said, but Field Museum spokesperson Nancy O’Shea said in an e-mail that “nothing was damaged at the museum during the event, and nothing was thrown at Sue.”
Hanson did not respond to repeated requests for comment, and Washburn and O’Shea declined to comment further.
The Chicago media picked up on the story on Friday, as trucks from CBS and NBC were parked along Foster Street in the afternoon. The alleged travails of Sue appeared at the top of stories in the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Sue, Chicago’s iconic T. rex, likely saw some pretty wild stuff 67 million years ago, but a Northwestern University grad school party at her Field Museum home was a real fright, too,” the Sun-Times wrote.
Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage said on Friday that Kellogg officials apologized to the Field Museum for the behavior.
“It’s not what we expect of Kellogg and Northwestern students,” Cubbage said late Friday afternoon. “There’s a sense of disappointment here.”
About 700 students attended the CIM ball on Sept. 26 at the Field Museum to cap off New Student Orientation for the Class of 2010. Although this event was held for the new class, there were more than 100 people in attendance from other years.