Crog the ClubberEDITOR’S NOTE: This article was published in an April Fool’s Day edition of Student Life. Its content is not factual.
Under heavy student pressure to provide a wider selection of dining options on campus, Washington University administration recently introduced a new meal plan to be offered to all future classes, starting with the incoming Class of 2011. The plan, tentatively called the Forager, allows students to experience a fresher selection of meats and vegetables found around different parts of the campus itself.
The main difference between the Forager and the current meal plans is that rather than swiping a card to purchase food prepared by Bon App‚tit employees, students will actually roam campus in search of live game and edible fruits. The University plans to spend over $300 million on new edible landscaping and animal breeding practices catering to Forager subscribers, who will be free to pick fruits and berries at any time. However, just as the Kosher Cart is restricted to students on the Kosher meal plan, the new orchards, fields, and meadows will be restricted to Forager use and will be constantly monitored for trespassers. Several crops have been discussed as candidates to be planted, including blackberries, soybeans, apples, sweet yams and Bradford pears.
Once signed up for the Forager, students will receive the accompanying “Live like a Bear” survival package free of charge to aid them in their daily search for food. Included in the package are a “harvest basket” to gather wild fruits and vegetables, a pass key to the electric fence which will surround the cultivated crops, and a convenient, sawed-off shotgun to aid in their pursuit of fresh game. Likely sources of meat will include pigeons, rabbits, squirrels, pre-frosh and rare migratory birds.
The University is extremely optimistic about the implications of the plan and is ready to put it into action.
“This is an historic moment for the University, and for that matter, all universities across our country,” said Chancellor Karm Nothgirw. “No longer will students be confined to eating food that others have grown, slaughtered, manufactured, butchered or otherwise prepared for them.” Arts & Sciences Dean Sames “Fox” McGloud agreed, saying, “The Forager will bring a whole new degree of freedom to our students, and will bring them one step closer to living in the real world of brute survival and general carnage.”
Surprisingly, there has been some scattered criticism surrounding the implementation of the Forager plan, though the administration was quick to dismiss that there was any cause for concern. Some of the opposition has been concerned with the proposed devotion of the entire Brookings Quadrangle to sorghum cultivation. A concerned parent wrote in, “If the quad is converted to cropland, my son will have no place to comfortably pass out drunk after W.I.L.D. next year! This is utterly inexcusable.”
McGloud explained, “Agricultural space is sparse on our campus, so we’ve got to make the best of what we have.” He also used this explanation to defend the plan to convert Mudd Field to a series of honey bee colonies.
Safety concerns have also cropped up, namely surrounding the essential Forager survival package. Nothgirw was quick to reassure, however, explaining, “Any 18-year-old who doesn’t know his way around a sawed-off 12-gauge has no chance of being admitted to Washington University in the first place,” quickly adding, “Those ingrates go to Emory.”