University of Tampa Squirrel Earns Scholarship

by Bee Tree

TAMPA, Florida - On Wednesday, Skippy the squirrel became the first campus squirrel to earn a $15,000 scholarship to the University of Tampa (UT). 

Skippy has resided on the University of Tampa campus for approximately four years and has become a campus icon. 

"Skippy is the friendliest, most compassionate squirrel I've ever met," said Johnathon Forest, a junior at UT. "I've been [at the university] for three years, and she's the main reason I didn't transfer to USF."

Recently, Tampa Bay government officials implanted the "two squirrels with one nut" policy which was created to control the pest population around the downtown area. Citizens are encouraged to hunt domestic pests and bring the tails to any local police station for a cash reward.

Squirrels are included on the pest list, and, despite UT being a private university, citizens have been hunting squirrels on university property. The issue has been so prevalent that campus safety officers have to drastic measures.

Officer Smith in squirrel uniform

"We now have to have 15 officers patrolling the campus all hours of the nights,” said Bill Mooreland, a University of Tampa saftey officer. “We even had to have an officer sit in a tree dressed as a squirrel to bait locals to hunt him. Luckily he was a newly hired officer so he small.” 

The university decided that the only way to protect Skippy was to make her an official student at UT.

"I can't even fathom what I would do if Skippy wasn't a part of this campus," said, Marcus Williams, Director of Parks and Groundskeeping at UT. "I'm glad that [faculty] decided to make her official." 

The proposal to enlist Skippy as a full-time student was brought forward by a number of UT faculty. 6,000 faculty members and students signed the petition to save Skippy. 

"Once I saw there were 6,000 people that wanted to save the squirrel, I knew that it had to be done," said University of Tampa Interim President, Scott Slip. "I know how to run a university, and student happiness is high up on the list of things that make UT great."

Skippy is enlisted in 16 credit hours as a NUTrition major for the upcoming 2020 spring semester.