By Anita Sjåvik
Bachelor of English and MAGLU English were “playing with murder” in the Crime Fiction class on October 20th – with a murder-mystery game set at The Cat’s Meow Nightclub (aka room 2441 of Bodø campus) in the Roaring ’20s. Over 30 Bachelor of English students came in costume and played parts that they had researched in advance. This created a most authentic mood; you really felt like it was the 1920s.
Felix Fontano (played by MAGLU English student Sondre Stavem), met a terrible end, and there were several partygoers who had good reason to want him gone. Maybe it was his wife, Edith Fontano (played by BAENG student Maria Fernanda Allasia) who was tired of his womanizing? Or perhaps it was track owner Duke Carillo (played by BAENG student Markus Bye Bjørgum) who was tired of carrying his debts? We won’t reveal it here… Students had to use the clues and their detection skills to figure out “whodunit”.
Lunch was by LystPå, and Pias balletstudio helped with the costumes. There was also live jazz music from MAGLU music students, Julian Øines Jørgensen and Andreas Strand, and there were other English teacher education students assisting as well.
According to Associate Professor of English and BAENG Programme Coordinator Jessica Allen Hanssen, “These students were completely online last year, and so we thought it would be great to do something special for them this year now that we can gather in person again. What better way to learn how detectives work than to solve a case?”
The students had a blast, and truly took the assignment to heart. They were incredibly convincing in their roles, and one almost forgot that they were only acting. Talking with some of them about how they liked it, the response was positive:
- “Good initiative from the faculty, very interesting way of learning literature” – Sondre Stavem
- “It was very cool, and a very good way to learn. I enjoy murder mysteries very much and this is the best I’ve been to so far!” – Emma Ulrikke Holm (BAENG)
- “I think this is extraordinary. I can’t wait to find out who did it!” – Daniel Kurečka (Semester exchange student from Czech Republic)
- “It`s a great initiative by the department. It is great to have this experience as part of our education” – Ingjerd Arnøy, Senior Lecturer in Social Studies student (with English as a second teaching subject).
The Bachelor of English at Nord University has been rated highest in student satisfaction among all similar degree programs in Norway for the last four years.
