Becoming SNAF-U takes place at Small but National, Aspiring to be Famous, University, abbreviated as SNAF-U, an obvious play on the well-known acronym which means “Situation Normal, All Fouled Up.” It tells the hilarious tale of the lengths to which an American university will go to get back into the top twenty-five rankings of a national news magazine. This quest for academic prestige, excellence and fame ends up leading the university and its staff down a slippery slope. Along the way, the reader will encounter a raft of colorful characters including Dean Ty McTavish, the book’s protagonist, the curmudgeon Leo Da Vinci and the alluring Jamais Dimanche. Although Becoming SNAF-U is a work of fiction recent reports of US universities manipulating data in order to look better to national news media suggest that it may not be all that far from the truth.
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