If you are a student here at WSU, chances are you have heard rumors milling about.

With fables of the “death of a roommate gets you an A in all your classes,” to the “free tuition if you get hit by a university vehicle” legends, it’s no surprise to hear jokes in passing about running in front of the catering services vehicles as they drive past.

That begs the question: are these fables true, or merely hearsay from students past?

“If a roommate does pass away one of the things that the Dean of Students Office will do is reach out to that other roommate and figure out if there are mental health services that they might need,” said Phil Weiler, vice president of university marketing and communications.

If there isn’t a university policy of straight A’s for a series of unfortunate events, how did the tale come to be?

In 1998, a movie by the name of “Dead Man’s Curve” was released, followed by another film titled “Dead Man on Campus.” Both of these pictures kickstarted the rumor mill, with each plot depicting a dorm-mate passing away and everyone getting better grades because of it.

Though it’s a low-brow plot, the movies also promote a level of violence unknown to college campuses, with scenes of roommates trying to murder each other for that coveted 4.0 GPA.

These films even spawned an episode of “Law and Order,” where a student is given a 4.0 for the semester after her dorm-mate commits suicide.

Weiler said he hopes people can recognize a hoax when they see one.

“The one that I have always heard when I was a student was if the faculty member’s 10 minutes or 15 minutes late, class is excused, and that’s not a real university policy,” Weiler said.

In correspondence with multiple WSU faculty, many department heads said they never heard of such rumors, and were unable to say if there were any policies in place to deal with unexpected circumstances. With a multitude of well wishes, faculty members were well out of the loop.

“Once, we were working with a student, an international student in fact, who came home to his apartment and saw that it had caught fire and his passport was burned up, along with all his clothes and textbooks,” Weiler said.

In this instance, WSU took action to find clothing and shelter for the student and helped him get his passport replaced, Weiler said.

WSU has a multitude of programs in place to aid students in times of need, not just if your roommate dies. Whatever the circumstance, there are services with the Dean of Students Office, the Academic Success and Career Center and Cougar Health Services. There are a vast number of institutions in place for students, so you don’t have to face your problems alone.

“Whenever students face challenges in their lives, they should not think that they have to figure it out on their own,” Weiler said. “The first step would be to reach out to a faculty member … reach out to the dean of students because chances are there’s already a program in place that you can get plugged into to really kind of help you navigate through that.”

So, don’t get your hopes up if you happen to run into a university catering services vehicle. Chances are, you’re still going to have to pay full tuition.