OK. Through several, MANY begin/rescue blocks, the funky University#show's are working fairly well. However, my entire statistics solution doesn't just need to be refactored, it needs to be dug up completely and replaced. Maybe with R through Ruby/Rails, we'll see.
site now directs root_url user to the universities interactive table sorted by freshman dorm 'supply slope' data, lowest to highest
small UI changes
the app now
'remembers' parameters when going back and forth from the interactive table to a university show view, one thing that worries me is that the params must be cleared at some point or some sort of entanglement may occur