A Chicago heifer hasn’t sparked this much trouble since Mrs. O’Leary’s cow tipped over a lantern.

Hoping to add a little life and color to Norris University Center, administrators unveiled Moo@NU in April. The life-size painted cow — in the style of those that adorned the streets of Chicago last year — was presented as a gift from the Northwestern Institute for Learning in Retirement.

But on May 16, two NU students could no longer handle the temptation and cut the 50-pound fiberglass cow off at the hooves to separate it from its 200-pound base.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my professional life as I am at this wanton act of vandalism,” said Bill Johnston, Norris director, after the theft. “Whoever did it is a punk.”

The theft divided the campus, with some cheering the thieves’ act as a classic college prank and others decrying it as the unconscionable work of anarchist hoodlums.

As it turned out the vandalism was the work of two Phi Gamma Delta members.

Moo@NU, or what was left of it, was found May 26 at the Fiji fraternity house. Following a party at Fiji, police received an anonymous phone call as to the bovine’s whereabouts and headed to the house around 3 a.m.

A thorough search of house closets produced the head and udders under a box in a chapter room closet.

About a month later, Fiji members Boris Labinov and Nicholas Hughes, who confessed to university officials three days after the cow was found, were charged with theft and criminal damage to property for stealing and destroying Moo@NU.

Their sentence: Replace the cow. The court ordered the students to ship a new cow from Switzerland, commission an artist to design it and arrange for a plaque and stand for the cow. They also must plan a reception and dedication for the new cow. In total, officials estimated the process to cost around $14,000.

So while Moo@NU will not be here to greet the class of 2004, another cow should be along shortly. And Norris officials have learned a lesson: This one will be kept inside.