USND at Hoople

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The University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople is the fictional university which was home institution for Professor Peter Schickele, who is renowned as the greatest expert on the life and works of the (similarly renowned) fictional composer P. D. Q. Bach and who serves as a professor in the Extension Division of the Musicolology and Musical Pathology departments. It is to Hoople, North Dakota, that Professor Schickele returns from his research journeys.

The university is part of Schickele's highly elaborated fictional tableau, but is probably not exactly a practical joke since the humor is rather broad and unlikely to be taken seriously by a careful observer.

The name of the institution is fictional at another level: Hoople, although a real town, is actually located in northeastern North Dakota, not southern North Dakota.

Pictures of various parts of the campus have been included in liner notes to P.D.Q. Bach albums. They are all photographs of the same barn in a barren landscape. Each photo is taken from a different angle and identified as a separate building on the campus.

"Professor" Schickele has mentioned the institution in the spoken introductions on many albums of P. D. Q. Bach's music. It figures most prominently on the P. D. Q. Bach On The Air album, which is a recording of a segment of the output of the university's radio station, WOOF. During the production, a wall of the soundproofed studio is blown out by exploding equipment and the professor is drowned out by the cacophony made by startled farm animals formerly on the other side of the now non-existent wall.

Other than Professor Schickele, the only other known faculty member is Prof. Sven "Chainsaw" Svenson, the leader of a particularly militant chapter of the American Association of University Professors who, apparently dubious of Professor Schickele's contributions to knowledge, is consistently seeking to have his tenure revoked.