Month: February 2022 Page 1 of 2

While monitoring the app known as “YikYak,” the B&S has realized the alarming degree to which the student body is unable to express their feelings to their peers. After this startling revelation, B&S staff have magnanimously decided to take on the role of matchmaker. This duty is taken only slightly more seriously than the noble responsibilities of our student journalists, factfinders, and muckrakers. Printed below are a selection of anonymous student confessions; please write in if you think you might be the object of one of these secret admirers’ affections. 

HSSC Atrium– So, here’s the thing: I see you every MWF (at the tables whose tops shake back and forth whenever you write on them), but at this point it would probably be weird for me to introduce myself. So, I guess I’ll just keep seeing you there until one of us graduates, or dies.  

Takeout Container Line – The world seemed to stop when I saw you for the first time. But that’s probably because it (and the line) sure did when the Cheery Checker realized that you somehow had 5 containers checked out under your name.  

Read More

by Carter Ottele

Bear Recreation and Athletic Center— The 2022 Winter Olympics Games are underway in Beijing. But Grinnell College has already set its sights on 2024. This Tuesday, the International Olympic Committee, or IOC (not to be confused with the Apple operating system iOS, Jupiter’s third-largest moon Io, or the state of Iowa), announced that the 2024 Olympics have been moved from Paris, France to Grinnell, Iowa.

The IOC justified its sudden reversal as an attempt to reach new viewers and update the Games for contemporary times. In addition, the organization seeks to infuse more local character into the event. So in addition to classics such as swimming, cycling, and that one where they spin a ribbon in circles, viewers worldwide will be exposed to several competitions that are already familiar to Grinnellians. Some notable first-time events include:

Read More

By Clare Newman

For the 2021-2022 academic year, the Grinnell College administration has been attempting to mitigate student stress. Along with Working Differently Days, various offices of the college have been sponsoring events aimed at student wellness. The Cashier’s office hosted a treasure hunt last week and in early March Admissions is planning on hosting an event where current students have the opportunity to admit or deny real prospies. This upcoming weekend, as part of the College’s new wellness programming, the DAR office will be hosting a pheasant hunt. Birds will be bussed in from Belle Plaine and released on the football field the evening before the hunt. This idea came from 1889 graduate F. Bradford Moore who enthusiastically related his relaxing experiences hunting fowl while he was a student. “The chaps and I would head over to Baker farm and shoot pheasant a few times a year. Mrs. Baker was a right church-bell but she taught us how to prepare a bird bang up to the elephant!”

Read More

By Gabby Hernandez

HSSC– Countless reports of students never returning from a study session in Grinnell College’s Humanities and Social Studies Center (HSSC) have been recorded by Campus Safety. Just this semester, 17 students have been lost, never to turn in their homework again. 

As a result of online classes during the pandemic, many first and second years have entered HSSC classrooms without prior warning from upperclassmen about that foreboding voice they know so well. Upperclassmen have not had enough time to share their survivor stories and nightmares about that one sentence: “This room will automatically shut down in 60 seconds.” 

Exactly what happens next is a matter of whispered debate among Grinnellians. First, all technology shuts down; projector screens retreat into the ceiling with a shuddering creak that sounds almost like the building itself is sighing, and the room’s computers blink off one by one, leaving a sea of gleaming blank screens. At this point, any knowledgeable third or fourth year student has stuffed their papers into their backpack and exited the room, hearing the lock itself behind them with a quiet, decisive, click. The lights flicker off, plunging the windows of the room into an inky void of spiraling blackness, even in the middle of the day. 

Read More

By Dale Bell

GRINNELL, IA—In a press conference held yesterday, college officials announced they would be sponsoring a no-holds-barred gladiator battle on Mac Field to fill the spot in Comparative Herbalism (HIS-195) after a student dropped the class last week. College spokesperson Livia Atkins explained this decision: “We understand students are anxious to get into Comparative Herbalism. During registration it overfilled by more students than we currently have enrolled at Grinnell, so we’ve decided to sponsor a merit-based selection process. We call it The Herbal Games™.”

It seems that fighting has already broken out on Mac Field, with students eager to disqualify potential opponents before the main battle. “I mean, I go to DAG a lot so I figured it would just be like that,” said Benjamin Levy ’23. “I grabbed a foam sword and ran out to the field. It was absolute chaos. There were athletes with baseball bats, DHall workers with kitchen knives, a team of classics students with a working trebuchet, and I think a physics major who brought a laser? Someone hit me across the head with a hydroflask, and I dropped that foam sword to look for something more substantial, but then Jerry from my poli sci class was coming at me with a lead pipe, next thing I know I was waking up in SHAW. I know the college has our best interest at heart [sic] but this just seems like a bit much.”

Read More

 by Javy Rommel-Ruiz

JRC—Long lines, shuttered dining stations, and outrage over uncomposted flatware has plagued Grinnell’s Dining Hall this semester as Dining Services struggles with understaffing. After an attempt to pay workers in only dining dollars fell through due to “violations” of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the college has found itself forced to consider more extreme options to gain and maintain its workforce. Raising wages is of course out of the question; the college is now forcibly conscripting all faculty to work dining shifts under a new “community service” requirement. 

Read More