About FIAT
The Falanouc Institute of Arts and Technology, or FIAT, is an intimately-sized school for young people of special talent and exceptional breeding. Located near the banks of a muddy rivulet in its headmaster’s back yard, it offers a thorough grounding in mathematics, the sciences, literature, and the visual and performing arts, as well as a full curriculum in such Useful Crafts as baking, sewing, and plumbing so that our graduates can fend for themselves when they find that a liberal education does not make them employable.
Our Glorious History
The early years
The Falanouc Institute of Arts and Technology was founded in 1656 on the shores of the Waffe River in England. Then known as “Falanouc-on-Waffe,” it was primarily a refuge for the ne’er-do-well younger sons of minor aristocracy forced into hiding after the English Civil War. The first curriculum included such subjects as Laying About, Advanced Insolence, Table Manners for Louts, Cheating at Cards Without Being Ascertained, and Latin.
After an unforunate case of mistaken identity involving then-headmaster Sir Harold Inkwell, the Great Fire of London, and a brace of pigeons, the school began an itenerant (one might say “picaresque,”, but probably shouldn’t) existence, taking up brief residences in Scotland, the West Country, a Soho basement, and an outhouse in the woods behind Buckingham Palace before finally settling, in 1768, in a thatched hut in Yorkshire.
Alas, this residence, too, would prove short-lived. In 1799, headmaster Richard Anterworten married the school’s teacher of Music, Dance, Idle Conversation and Gaeity, Annabelle Whitwoller. Since Ms. Whitwoller was already married, this circumstance compelled the happy couple to quit England at once. They packed up the school’s library, records, and small collection of musical instruments and boarded the next ship for the New World.
To America
However, exigency would prove a boon, for the period that followed was the most prestigious and prosperous to date for the troubled Institute. Settling in South Carolina, the Anterwortens, now calling themselves Mr. and Mrs. Andrews-Smyth-Willaby, reconceived the Institute as one of the rare co-educational institutions of its day and made their mark teaching the children of southern aristocracy. They largely restored the Institute’s original curriculum but over time expanded its offerings in the Mostly Useless Arts, adding courses in such subjects as Advanced Wax Fruit Design, Speaking in a Charming Manner, and Not Passing Out While Wearing a Corset.
In 1859, on the eve of the Civil War, the Institute sank into a swamp.
Today
The Falanouc Institute was re-established in North Carolina in 2010 as a largely modern, footwear-optional academy.
Miscellany
Our mascot (pictured in the seal) is the antlered falanouc, a rare and lovely relative of the mongoose native to Deepest Madagascar. The antlered falanouc is rarely seen, as unlike its flashier snake-battling cousin it prefers to remain in its rooms listening to violin music, reading poetry, squaring circles, and making wax fruit. Such a studious creature is, of course, the perfect mascot for our beloved Institution.
The school colors are green and gold; specifically the colors of an omelet fines herbes.
FIAT lacks a football team, nor in fact has any sporting-teams whatever, hence has no fight song as such. However, our Competition Baking Squad took top honors at the 2015 All-South Middling Institutions Champtionship, and in the squad’s honor — and in light of the unusual esteem in which students and faculty hold our cafeteria — the following song is sung upon special occasions, to the tune of the University of Delaware Fight Song:
We’ll cook, cook, cook for Falanouc,
Cook for the green and gold!
Baloney sandwich? That’s a joke!
We’ll make a banquet hot or cold.
So when it’s time for lunch, we’re really stoked—
We’ll eat as much as we can hold!
So let’s cook, cook, cook for Falanouc,
Cook for the green and gold!Falanouc will dine tonight,
Falanouc will dine!
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up,
Fanalouc will dine!Etc.