My God, The Lawrentian is so boring this year, isn’t it? Take a gander at some of the most recent front-page headlines: “Lawrence continues re-accreditation process,” “Posse Scholars address social responsibility” – the redeeming factor of this headline is the mention of the hilariously misguidedly named Posse Program – and “Committee evaluates tutorial education.” Sure, the fact that Lawrence University will once again prove its worthiness to stand among the elite as an accredited college is awesome, but there has yet to be a campus story that has captivated the student body as in years past.
Check out this headline from my freshman year: “Shower peepers at large – deans put residence halls under lockdown indefinitely.” The shower peeper became a popular figure on campus that year. He was like LU’s own personal comic book villain. We have nothing nearly as awesome this year. Before the peeper began his peeping shenanigans, all residence halls were open during the day. His dastardly peeping resulted in the permanent lockdown of the entire campus. How can “Committee evaluates tutorial education” hope to compete with that?
The following year would prove to be even more exciting. The night before the 2006 elections, the Viking Conservatives covered the campus in an adorably simple-minded blanket of pamphlets informing the campus, particularly the GLOW house, that allowing homosexuals the same rights as everyone else would ultimately lead to people screwing trees. No, I’m serious. While Wisconsin voters ultimately bought the floral-fornicating argument, the sheer stupidity of the VC’s actions united the campus, with VC replacing the LU Objectivists as our universal punch line. Sure, the whole thing was a bit depressing, but at least it wasn’t boring.
The pinnacle of Lawrence-related controversies arrived last year, when a new scandal would pop up almost every week, including the Hiett meth – peyote – lab, the faux P + H party posters, that day when the Yuais drew sperm on the sidewalk all over campus, that weird armless statue, and the equally weird subsequent “this is art,” “this is not art” sticker campaign that was instigated after the armless statue was vandalized.
Each story had its own intricate twists and turns that captivated those of us fortunate enough to be around at the time, but what made these events especially exciting was the fact that they enabled Lawrentians to openly chastise groups we’ve always secretly disliked, including the Man, fraternities, Yuais and art majors.
I propose a new renaissance in student scandalizing. Obviously, I wouldn’t want anyone to be hurt, but what if someone were, say, to steal all of the clothing in every laundry room and dump it in one gigantic pile in front of Main Hall? There would be at least four weeks’ worth of material for The Lawrentian to cover. Its four successive headlines would likely progress as follows: first – “Campus in shock as stolen laundry found strewn across Main Hall green,” second – “Letter to the editor: Laundry theft cause for concern,” third – “Nancy Truesdell to host open forum addressing recent laundry theft and vandalism” and fourth – “Open forum on recent theft lively, though sparsely attended.” That would keep our newspaper interesting until that dark, disturbing secret that Jill Beck has been keeping under wraps finally comes out. You know which one I’m talking about.
Wanted: More Lawrence scandals
