Here at the Technician, we feel that the student body deserves the truth and nothing but the truth, as hard as it may be to swallow at times. Thanks to our strong tradition of investigative journalism, we have uncovered a system of hypocrisy, corruption and absurdity that penetrates into the heart of one of the most beloved departments.
The year is 2016. For everybody but the American political Right, climate change exists and is a looming threat to human existence. Carbon dioxide looms like a specter in our atmosphere. Trees are being cut down at an alarming rate to fuel man’s unending desire for land and unrepentant hubris.
Thankfully, we have amazing scholars in the environmental science department to provide us with the scientific guidance necessary to weather this storm. At least that’s what we thought. According to multiple sources, whose names we shall not disclose for the sake of their personal protection, tests are still being distributed department-wide … ON PAPER.
Yes reader, you read that correctly. In this year of our lord 2016, where there are perfectly suitable testing formats available on the computer, a discipline explicitly dedicated to fixing the cumulative maladies of industrialization stands, rock in hand, surrounded by the remains of its glass house.
We confronted the only professor in the environmental science department willing to comment: Jasmine Wildbutterfly, Ph.D. in monarch migration and regular at Kitsch on Hillsborough Street. She said, “I know it’s terrible for the environment. We give so many students so many tests. Think of all those poor trees crying from their souls. I can hear those willows weep.”
After crying for about 15 minutes, sobbing about poor elms, Jasmine took a bite off of a brownie and was then cogent for more questions. However, she refused to comment when asked why she continued to put the tests on paper.
We interviewed many students regarding this and found that the story went deeper. “They make us write up our homework assignments on paper — triple-spaced, it makes no sense bro,” commented one anonymous student. “One time, a professor forced the whole class to print out a copy of Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring.’ Like why print it when we can just read the PDF online?” commented another student.
After doing some research (i.e. Googling for five minutes), we discovered that the department head, Dick Wunceler, is on the board of a major paper company: Notanevilcompany Inc. After bribing his secretary, we discovered a lode of internal memos; the Technician is willing to go to great lengths to bring you the truth you deserve. Hundreds of correspondences were exchanged between Wunceler, company executives and faculty members.
Wunceler realized that forcing faculty members and students to print ludicrous amounts of paper caused profits to rise by 2.3 percent. As such, he continued this process for years, right under the collective noses of the student body. When asked to comment, Wunceler only responded, “Why don’t you make like a tree and leaf.”
