This one hasn't come up despite the presence of UCLA on the net. I'm led to
the sad conclusion that the tradition has died.

In the mid '70s, just before it was overrun by fanatic Dungeons & Dragons
(tm) players, the UCLA Computer Club was host to a long series of "glitter
traps". Example: joke subject sits at a desk, pulls out a drawer. A string
runs from the back of the drawer, up the wall, into the false ceiling, over
to a spot directly over the subject's head, where it triggers the trap: a
mousetrap whose action snaps a card away from its position covering a
funnel, releasing a handful of glitter, which flows down the funnel,
through its spout, through a hole in the ceiling acoustic tile, onto the
subject. It was wonderful to watch: a muffled snapping noise, a quiet
"chuff", and the slow, glittery descent of a cloud of brightly colored
dust, to settle over the head and shoulders of a club member who by now has
assumed an expression of appreciative resignation.