Author: B&S Staff Page 2 of 7

By Ethan Hughes

JRC– The “week of Hell” has come, and some Grinnellians are finding it more hellish than usual. The Student Government Association has required that all clubs create and submit their budget for next year by March 17th. While the B&S just assigned one of our many unpaid interns to the task, we have been informed that other student organizations don’t have that luxury. 

In the past, club budgets have been loosely regulated, and money has been given out all willy-nilly for stuff like snacks, games and sacrificial goats. This year, SGA and the administration have announced plans to cut down. Grinnell has already trimmed wasteful spending on CAs, downsizing to one for North one for East and two for South campus, the troublemakers. Plus, Dhall operational costs have been lowered by limiting vegetarian options to just raw carrots, shuttering the upstairs dining area and skimming hours off of workers’ pay. Now, administration embarks on a push to root up corruption and abuse from student organizational funds. 

The administration has now declared that “due to inflammation, [sic] all student organizations will have to thoroughly justify their purchases and that every penny must be thoroughly accounted for.” Clubs can earn deductions from the limited pool of money for their dependents and for every hundred dollars of tuition money they bring in.

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By Bella Nesbeth

GRINNELL, IOWA – Every student knows the unfortunate moment when they carve two hours out of their busy Grinnell schedules and lug their laundry baskets down to the basement of their residence hall just for there to be no open machines. In fact, some of the machines have the same clothes in them as last week! They weigh their options. Wait, accept defeat, or remove someone else’s soggy boxers from the machine. All three options are inconvenient. At the B&S, the pinnacle of journalistic integrity, we decided to get to the bottom of this mystery. Why do people leave their laundry in the machines? 

B&S reporters canvassed south campus, the residence hall where all of Grinnell’s anomalies live, and interviewed the first three students that were dumb enough to make eye contact with us. 

Our first victim was Maddie Beamer, class of ’26. Beamer, clad in mismatched socks and contradicting patterns, seemed to be wearing the outfit of someone who was currently doing laundry. 

B&S: Maddie, do you ever leave your laundry in the machines for an extended period of time? 

MB: No! I would never do that!

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By Catherine Terelak Selden Whitcomb 

The Selden Lincoln Whitcomb Essay Prize, awarded every spring to a promising young writer of the Grinnellian ilk, is a great honor. But what, pray tell, is honor? Is it a shiny trophy for the shelf in your inner room? A bronze plaque inscribed with your name, set out in the town square for all to see? A crisp promissory note for five hundred greenback dollars? 

I, Selden Lincoln Whitcomb, in my wise and agéd state, posit that honor is none of those things. Any distinction without the commensurate sacrifice, my children, is no honor at all. Honor is, rather, the sweat on your brow. Honor is the grit beneath your fingernails. Honor is the smell of hot coals in the morning. Honor is a piss in the cold. Honor is, above all, the loamy afterbirth on the scalp of a child conceived in love. 

Before I present the winner of the two thousand twenty-three Selden Lincoln Whitcomb Essay Prize, I believe it is only proper to commence with a brief telling of my own personal history, which will illuminate this conception of honor which I have lately elucidated and, more importantly, lend a greater meaning to the award itself. I, Selden Lincoln Whitcomb, consider myself an American of the most original order. A man for the history books. In my one hundred sixty-two years, I have borne witness to—and, aye, committed—every inhumane act known to this thoroughly inhuman age. I have traveled as far as the human spirit is permitted by reason to go, and I have traveled further yet. Be silent and listen, my children. You will learn much, much, much from my tale. 

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By Javy Rommel-Ruiz

JOHN CRYSTAL CENTER– As the Spring semester commences, fourth-years are frantically searching for jobs while other students scavenge for unfilled summer internships and MAPs. As such, the Careers, Life, and Service Center has announced they have issued a new handout of an exemplary, and brutally honest, Cover Letter for Students to use as a model. CLS has requested that we, the B&S, the most widely read campus publication, print it in order to ensure it’s as widely circulated as possible.

Edward Pumpernickel

1115 8th Avenue, Box REDACTED Grinnell, IA● REDACTED

REDACTED ● REDACTED

January 15th, 20XX,

Human Resources

Pink Floyd Memorial Psychiatric Hospital 

1894 Desolation Row

Anytown, USA REDACTED

To whom it may concern, 

Like a lamb to the slaughter, I willingly offer my flesh in service to you as a GENERIC ENTRY LEVEL POSITION at the Pink Floyd Memorial Psychiatric Hospital. I am particularly drawn to this position because I meet all the qualifications, have all the vague and non-specialized skills listed, and because this is the least terrible job listing I could find. Above all else, this opportunity pays real actual money for the exchange of services.

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By Anna Lipari

HSSC– Most Grinnell students are familiar with the feeling of hopeless rage induced when their study group is forced to work at an atrium table- or worse, a room in Noyce- because all the HSSC rooms are taken up by individual students working alone. There are hundreds of desks for individual quiet study in Burling, we grouse; what gives you the right to take that valuable co-working space? The B&S recently interviewed Digby W. Saltine III, a third year economics major and self-identified room-hogger, to investigate what drives this sort of behavior.

“I really don’t think I’m better than anyone else,” Saltine drawls, his feet propped up on the teacher’s desk of one of the third-floor North auditoriums. “I’m just not afraid to take life by the reins.” He takes a sip from one of the army of global cafe cups spread out across the room. One of the B&S interview team, having just come from a biology group project session that took place in the freezer room at the Spencer Grill, begins to drool with jealousy. “I wake up early, and the first thing I do before I head to the gym is set my backpack down in an empty room, and it’s there waiting for me when I get back to study later in the day.” 

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By Dale Bell

GRINNELL, IA—Disaster struck campus late last week, after a fire, which started in a room in Cleveland Hall, spread and incinerated most of the dorm. While no students were injured, it appears that the inferno has burned over six hundred pounds of marijuana stored across the dorm, creating a cloud of pot smoke so strong and large it has resulted in a contact high for most of the campus, and parts of the town. 

All attempts to put out the blaze have failed, with firefighters unable to continue their jobs for more than twenty minutes without snack breaks, which eventually turn into cuddle piles and extended naps. Administration officials have tried to arrange provisions for the munchy-ridden firefighters with several truckloads of TOSTITOS® Hint of Spicy Queso Chips, but ended up eating most of the bags themselves after they left a window open.

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By Ethan Hughes 

BURLING LIBRARY – Last week many, Grinelians reported “anxiety and terror” as another round of class registration loomed over them. B&S reporters believe this to be the second, or maybe third round, although reports from students, staff, and administrators heavily conflict. A quote from third year Morgan Paige, who we found sobbing in a cranny under the Burling jungle gym: “Why would they make the stress of class registration take three weeks? That’s just brilliant! Plus it’s like so confusing and obtuse as a system. What do they expect of us? To actually read our emails? I get a hundred handshake alerts and student memos a week. I can’t read everything.” 

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By Conrad Dahm  

On October 6th, the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) and Grinnell College began negotiating over the first labor contract in American history that applies to all undergraduate workers at a school. The bargaining session was open to the public and held in JRC 101. It was well attended by students, many of whom were sympathetic to UGSDW. During the session, some students got a little overzealous with their clapping, booing, and throwing of rotten tomatoes at anyone perceived as a member of the Grinnell administration. (Unfortunately, that kid who wears a suit to class may have been caught in the crossfire.) As bargaining continued, students continued to heckle the College, which must have been very very hard for the $2.93 billion-endowed institution. 

Coincidentally, for this week’s bargaining session and for the foreseeable future, the College has decided to install a corn maze in front of the JRC, in a move that is completely unrelated to bargaining. The B&S spoke with College administrators, Union leaders, and students about the move and their thoughts on the issues. 

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