Dan DaranciangDear Reader: This article appears as part of Student Life’s annual April Fool’s issue. Please don’t think anything in it is true. It’s all made up.
Washington University in St. Louis has a lot to be proud of. We’ve definitely earned bragging rights for the refurbished bathrooms in Mallinckrodt and the splendid new Koenig Palace, and I have never heard the construction workers complain. But there is something sorely disappointing and downright shameful happening on this campus, something most students are refusing to acknowledge. That’s right. We are underpaying our Chancellor.
You may ask, humble student, what our head honcho has done for us over the years. There’s the free pizza, the interviews for Student Life and let’s not forget the fifteen babies he delivered last year while simultaneously teaching scared freshman to integrate 15e-2x. This was after he wrote an aria while balancing the University’s budget using a pen and his toes (note: he was also wearing shoes). And, after delivering the babies, he saved a flock of pigeons from the vicious intentions of a rabid bike-rider. All of this, my friends, was accomplished in a mere seven minutes, during a busy passing time between classes.
I asked Chancellor Wrighton for his thoughts on this grievous matter.
“I’m a big proponent of the five-year-plan. I once had a five-year-plan for Washington University – a personal plan, a plan from the heart, a plan from my wallet, a plan to benefit every student at Wash U.”
At this point he began to cry, which disintegrated into a blubbering fit. A few minutes passed and he was unable to calm down. I recommended mozzarella sticks – they have helped me through some tough times.
Amid the sniffles and hiccups, the facts emerged. Everyone knows about the Chancellor’s love of five-year-plans, but this five-year-plan was special. He planned to purchase, over five years, a small tropical island off the coast of Australia and, after admitting every aboriginal adolescent into Wash. U., convert the island into an off-shore paradise for Wash. U. students. I asked why this was no longer possible.
“Because,” he stammered, “I am among the lowest paid chancellors in the nation,” and he then began sobbing anew.
I would have offered a hanky but that’s just gross. Personally, I was shocked and anguished by this behavior. And this is why, fellow students, something must be done. The chancellor himself suggested a letter-writing campaign, citing their usefulness in the past.
I looked into this matter, and discovered that this was not the only proposed plan for Wrighton’s money. The Board of Trustees suggested the following: a giant statue of an emaciated kangaroo, an array of concrete water fowl or a piece of George Washington’s nose from Mount Rushmore. The suggestion was made early on for newer freshman dormitories, but was quickly rejected from lack of interest.
The defeat of having lost this tropical island is indeed horrendous. Students with the intention to tan will be forced to go elsewhere over Spring Break, to such disreputable locations as Acapulco and Fiji and the tanning salon down the street. Our stressed, overworked student body will have to find newer places to cause drunken mayhem and our beloved chancellor will remain (and not by choice) as porcelain-faced as ever.
But for the moment, both Chancellor Wrighton and the students of Wash. U. will have to endure the pain of this considerable loss.
“Now the only way to leave my mark is to build another library,” said Wrighton.