New York Times puzzle master Will Shortz started his career at Indiana University, creating the first-ever degree in enigmatology—the study of riddles—through IU’s Individualized Major Program.
On Oct. 17, 2014, Shortz visited the IU Bloomington campus to accept a Distinguished Alumni Service Award. During the visit, he met with current Individualized Major Program students and presented an informal lecture at the Lilly Library, which houses about 400,000 books, 100,000 pieces of sheet music and more than 7.5 manuscripts, as well as the puzzle collection, with more than 30,000 puzzles and 4,000 puzzle-related books.