Looking for ways to make up for the $24 million cut from the U’s budget, U administrators have come up with a solution that doesn’t call for raising tuition or firing professors.
U President Michael Young announced Tuesday that, effective the beginning of Summer Semester, all students and professors from what he termed “soft” colleges, such as humanities or fine arts, will be integrated into upper-campus ventures to serve as research subjects.
“The U is a top Research I university on par with MIT and Stanford, so all of our students are getting a great bargain,” Young said. “We figured that students from these (soft) majors, who rarely go on to achieve careers that allow them to become donors later in life, should contribute to the U in some way if they want to continue attending this institution.”
Young also pointed to the benefit of bridging the gap between lower and upper campuses, which has long been a focus of administrators.
“This revolutionary, and to my knowledge, unprecedented move, will bring together students, professors and researchers from all disciplines across campus8212;whether it be downstairs in the U Hospital’s bedpan-cleaning room, in a testing room in one of the USTAR buildings or on one of the practice operating tables at the hospital,” Young said.
“Cadavers are also in short supply,” Young added without further explanation.
Lorris Betz, dean of the U’s medical school, predicted the move would be met with approval campus-wide, and speculated that campuses across the country might soon follow in Young’s footsteps.
“The students and departments on lower campus are really living in the dark ages,” Betz said. “It’s time we bring them into the future; otherwise they will continue to be leeches on the side of the U community.”
An unnamed researcher from an unnamed facility in Research Park agreed with Young’s decision.
“Having a human research subject instead of an animal has many benefits,” he said. “The results of the study can be calculated immediately, and it’s much more cost-effective than buying or breeding monkeys. Not to mention it gets those pain-in-the-ass animal rights activists off our backs.”
Other researchers, however, were concerned about the viability of the students as test subjects.
“Across the board, students who study in the fine arts or humanities are not representative of the human race as a whole,” said another unnamed researcher. “They usually have smaller brain masses and often fail our standard maze and food-lever tests. Their poor diets also make them unsuitable for life in a cage8212;on average we lose half of our participants within a week to disease.”
The researcher also noted that some added expenses have been incurred, as students from the philosophy and English departments had to be muzzled.
“They just wouldn’t stop yammering,” she said. “When provoked, a rhesus monkey can emit an undulating scream reaching up to 110 decibels, but when you’re in a small room surrounded by students talking loudly about the existential implications of their captivity8212;that’s when hearing loss occurs.”
Liz Spaniels, a senior double-major in comparative literature and history, said she was unconcerned about the changes this would bring to her studies.
“I’m not in any hurry to go join the workforce during this recession, so this works for me,” she said. “I was thinking about getting a third major anyhow, but this will really be helpful in prolonging my studies. As long as I have food pellets to eat and the floor of a wire-mesh cage to rest my head on at night, I’ll be happy.”
Spaniels also said she was excited about the possibilities for advancement offered by the Moran Eye Center, where she is currently housed.
“As soon as a year from now, my eye muscles could be used to test an electrical stimulator for any possible harmful effects,” she said. “That’s going to look way better than the extended study-abroad trip to England I’d been planning.”
Lance Bandley, spokesman for ARUP Blood Services, said that students who are chosen to serve as blood donors should feel especially lucky.
“I’ve seen those skinny, underfed students wandering around campus,” he said. “Now they can at least have a juice box and some crackers every day before and after donating their daily pint.”
Editor’s note8212;This story is not real. Happy April Fools’ Day!