Campus Isn’t Safe Enough: A Proposal to Eliminate Liability (and House Culture)

Disclaimer: This is satire. If you feel the need to send a malicious email to anyone after reading this, consider taking a walk by the Turtle Pond instead. Also, this isn’t a dig at our Chief Student Affairs Officer, who’s been genuinely engaged with students in the six months he’s been here. It applies only to the people undergrads already know it applies to.

Changes to make the campus safer and more inclusive have been profoundly successful in the past several years. We have come a long way since the days when women were severely outnumbered and every house tradition was a Title IX violation. However, even though house events are now extremely opt-in and respectful, and house leadership invite productive feedback, we actually need more interventions for our safety, well-being, and sense of community. I hereby propose several solutions.

1. More Housing Walk-Throughs
   We need more housing walk-throughs to identify labeled luggage outside someone’s door and umbrellas drying in the hallway. They are fire hazards that we were never going to move unless the entire house was sent an email. What other imminent safety threats might still be lurking in plain sight that the last walk-through missed?

2. Ban All Events Organized By Students (i.e. That May Have Alcohol)
   Everyone knows our friends at Stanford and MIT don’t think we’re lame enough. While our undergraduates at peer institutions have, in addition to free time, parties that may or may not harbor questionable substances, we may have (gasp) alcohol, a safety-first culture, and Orange Watch. Rather than have students be a proven, safe resource at our events, why don’t we have them scrambling for funding instead?
   The ideal scenario would be having the RAs go door to door every Friday and Saturday night to search for and confiscate alcohol. That way, students can make the trek to USC or UCLA for reprieve (which are definitely not as problematic as the Caltech houses) and our safety is no longer the Institute’s problem! I don’t know why someone from the mythical administration hasn’t said it yet, but that’s obviously the most optimal scenario. Why stumble down Olive Walk and run into a friend of a friend on Orange Watch (to the horror of Institute staff), when you can stumble down 28th Street and run into a brother from [insert Greek letters you recognize from physics]? (For clarity: this is the opposite of advice.)

3. Don’t Question Anything
   While most of us understand the importance of oversight from people who are not “adolescent,” some of you need to stop acting like it’s reasonable to ask why your house has to stop doing something it has been doing for years without lawsuits.
   If our Institute-mandated, horizon-broadening hums have taught us anything, it is that blind obedience to authority is the peak of civic virtue. We should know better than to seek an explanation; that’s the reason we come to Caltech. Don’t ask why, don’t propose solutions, and certainly don’t try to push back if you think something doesn’t make sense. In case you didn’t know, “adolescence” clouds our judgment and is the sole hindrance to productive dialogue.

4. Stop Having Personalities
   Fellow students, this is the easiest way you can play your part. Have you ever considered acting like a robot? That way, the Institute will not have to worry about being liable for anything at all. Then, certain people will stop viewing some of us as delinquents (because Caltech is such an attractive school for people who want to engage in nefarious activities). We cannot be delinquent if we’re doing our problem sets every night. Burnout? That is so pre-SFE/OSE/[insert next year’s acronym]. Since its establishment, our sense of community and well-being has skyrocketed. Burnout has definitely been addressed and is not an issue anymore. Our passion for science is as strong as the day we arrived! There is still so much light in our eyes!

5. Reappropriate More of Tom Mannion’s Funding Without Student Input
   We need more funding for residential experience initiatives and staff. Why hire another mental health counselor when appointments are booked full, when we can buy more Twinkle Tea so students show up to events? You may be asking, where would the Institute get more money? Tom Mannion, of course.
   Why would Tom, the backbone of student-administration relations (e.g., he actively worked to help find a solution to keep the Fleming Cannon firing), have sustained funding? Why don’t we let this universally beloved man, who feeds us regularly and can be seen leaving his office well late into the night (even on Sundays), pay even more out of pocket? Residential experience events totally generate more enthusiasm than whatever Tom hosts. Since we already don’t have any more pies for Pi Day (because why would Caltech even celebrate that), why don’t we reappropriate the money for cooking class as well?

6. Rotate Every Frosh Into Bechtel
   How do we ensure that incoming students are not negatively influenced by the delinquency of house culture? Simple. During house sorting, we need to ensure that as many frosh as possible are funneled into Bechtel, especially the students who aren’t part of a sports team and have a scant support system. That way, they will be integrated into the undergraduate community by rarely being seen. I have never heard any whispers about Bechtel being socially isolating. None whatsoever. (Residential experience events surely fix any social isolation.)

7. Last But Certainly Not Least, Destroy House Culture
   Think about it logically. It is of paramount importance that our undergraduate experience is centered around minimizing possibilities for lawsuits as much as possible. Therefore, people who have no idea about what it’s like to be a student here are obviously the best to lead that. We need to support the quietly loud push to dismantle house culture entirely. That way, the mythical administration can redirect their time and money to other aspects of our undergraduate education that they care about, like turning course registration into a signature scavenger hunt.