Sanity On Campus
Need Sanity? New business delivers at BYU
The Salt Lake News - published December 6, 2013
Inspired by the popular startup, Caffeine on Campus, a group of five launched Sanity on Campus, a business that offers another commodity not typically found at the Lord's University: saneness.
"We saw that there was a modest demand and absolutely no supply," Jeff Blackburn, a sophomore studying biology and part of the team behind the sanity service, told The News. "I know personally there have been days when I've just come out of a church history class, or my religion professor was explaining evolutionary theory, or someone at a ward mix and mingle claimed he was one of the Three Nephites, and I just had to have some sanity. In every case I had to walk to the nearest off-campus convenience store before I could find anything that was remotely not nuts."
After two weeks, the new website, sanityoncampus, received over 5,000 hits. Nevertheless, the young entrepreneurs don't expect to become millionaires. For now, they are limiting their inventory to some basic services for that small niche market of the BYU student body who are tired of acting completely bonkers.
"The demand isn't big enough for the Office of Student Life to bother changing its whole system," Blackburn explained. "We aren't pushing for BYU to make changes in what they offer as far as sanity goes. Nor are we attempting to change the longstanding LDS cultural tradition of en masse delusion. We hope people see us more as an extremely fast delivery service dedicated to keeping our small client base from totally cracking up."
Currently the groups' extremely fast deliveries are limited to: birth control - attractive underwear - intelligent political commentary - alternatives to ranch dressing - marriage proposal solutions that don't require video equipment, Donny Osmond impersonations, or a football stadium card section - and finally, a sympathetic listener who doesn't object when an otherwise reasonable person rants and screams and drops the F-bomb.
So far, the Sanity on Campus team has not had any pushback from BYU. Other student efforts -- including an online petition urging the school to allow students to gather daily for "ten minutes of rational conversation" -- have fallen short. Last October, a student carrying a book on mitochondrial DNA was chased off campus by BYU security.
The Salt Lake News - published December 6, 2013
Inspired by the popular startup, Caffeine on Campus, a group of five launched Sanity on Campus, a business that offers another commodity not typically found at the Lord's University: saneness.
"We saw that there was a modest demand and absolutely no supply," Jeff Blackburn, a sophomore studying biology and part of the team behind the sanity service, told The News. "I know personally there have been days when I've just come out of a church history class, or my religion professor was explaining evolutionary theory, or someone at a ward mix and mingle claimed he was one of the Three Nephites, and I just had to have some sanity. In every case I had to walk to the nearest off-campus convenience store before I could find anything that was remotely not nuts."
After two weeks, the new website, sanityoncampus, received over 5,000 hits. Nevertheless, the young entrepreneurs don't expect to become millionaires. For now, they are limiting their inventory to some basic services for that small niche market of the BYU student body who are tired of acting completely bonkers.
"The demand isn't big enough for the Office of Student Life to bother changing its whole system," Blackburn explained. "We aren't pushing for BYU to make changes in what they offer as far as sanity goes. Nor are we attempting to change the longstanding LDS cultural tradition of en masse delusion. We hope people see us more as an extremely fast delivery service dedicated to keeping our small client base from totally cracking up."
Currently the groups' extremely fast deliveries are limited to: birth control - attractive underwear - intelligent political commentary - alternatives to ranch dressing - marriage proposal solutions that don't require video equipment, Donny Osmond impersonations, or a football stadium card section - and finally, a sympathetic listener who doesn't object when an otherwise reasonable person rants and screams and drops the F-bomb.
So far, the Sanity on Campus team has not had any pushback from BYU. Other student efforts -- including an online petition urging the school to allow students to gather daily for "ten minutes of rational conversation" -- have fallen short. Last October, a student carrying a book on mitochondrial DNA was chased off campus by BYU security.
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