Dear 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.
Due to student complaints that the cluster system does not provide enough options for them to complete their requirements and take classes they want, the administration has decided to introduce a scintillating new cluster entitled “Sex, Drugs and Alcohol.”
“We really think students aren’t well informed about these important aspects of life,” explained Chancellor Mark Wrighton with a wink and a nudge. “The students here are such goody-goodies. They need to be educated, if you know what I mean. This cluster is going to give students valuable life lessons that they will remember again and again and again and again.”
The classes in this cluster will immerse the student in all aspects of these integral vices. The sex section of the cluster is designed to teach students the personal and social methods of coitus. Classes include, “Orgasms: You Rub Me The Right Way,” “I’ll Kama Your Sutra: Positions and Pick-ups from Around the World” and “How Your Grandma Got It On: Sex Through the Ages.”
The alcohol section tries to show students how partying is what they came to college for. Alcohol classes include, “Beer Bongs Are Not Just For Sorority Girls: How All Cultures Love The Booze,” “How To Binge Drink With The Best Of Them: Academics As Alcoholics” and “Let’s Get Retarded: Helping Smart People Drink Stupidly.”
The drugs section of the course is meant to heighten students’ spirits and disable their brains for future professions. Classes offered include, “How To Get High,” “How To Stay High” and “The Many Different Highs Of High.” Teachers and students will regularly sample all the drugs they talk about so as to create the smokiest learning environment possible. As part of class protocol, pop drug tests will be conducted to ensure that students are studying.
Students must take one course at least from each section of the new cluster and all must take the advanced course, “The Big Bang: How To Be Baked, Stoned, Wasted and Unchaste All At Once,” as an ending course to tie together all they have learned. The class will include such activities as shooting up while tied to a bedpost and blindfolded.
Dean John Reremy of the School of Arts & Sciences thinks the new cluster is the answer to declining student interest in a full liberal arts education.
“Students don’t know what they are missing when they forego a liberal education,” said Reremy. “Education is not a one-night stand. You need to be in it, caress it, make it tingle. We’re encouraging students to get down and dirty with learning.”
To the surprise of all Washington University faculty, students are really up in (each other’s) arms about the new cluster. The large majority of the students feel the administration is trying to compromise their morals.
“I mean, what’s next?!?” asked exasperated sophomore Gussy Palore. “Infanticide lessons? How to be a sociopath? This administration’s values just keep getting more and more perverse.”
Other students have specific concerns about how the new cluster will affect the ever so huge party scene.
“I mean, we want to be a dry campus,” said Eyem A. Drunk, junior and president of Alpha Kappa Beta Delta Phi Gamma Mu Zeta fraternity. “We have fun all on our own. We don’t need to party. We have homework to occupy us. I mean, I am so excited because I am writing a dozen 20-page papers this weekend. All of my brothers are doing it. Why is the administration putting all this pressure on us? I’m worried we might get kicked off campus if we fail to drink.”
Despite their concerns, there is not much students can do about it. Just as in the past, if the college thinks that a cluster makes sense, it makes sense – end of story. Dean Reremy suggests that if any students wish to contest the cluster or add a class, they should bone up on their sexual favors.