Century addresses key shortcoming

Acting decisively and with purpose, administration, faculty, and staff members at Century College have worked quickly to address a key shortcoming of the school: a shortage of task forces.

Responding to growing concern from the Board of Trustees and the legislature that Century is falling behind other two-year schools in this important measure, Century has formed four new task forces. The task forces are each tasked with a crucial area: meaningless measures, misleading statistics, impossible problems, and dubious solutions.

“While the establishment of these task forces greatly improves our performance in the eyes of people who don’t understand what we are doing,” a spokesperson explained, “alone, they are not enough. Fortunately, we hope these task forces will soon ‘go viral’ and begin reproducing.”

“We will be the task force leader,” an administrator proudly declared. “And we will remain the leader in task forces until the legislature decides they want us to be the leader in something else.”

New technology allows Centuryon to work less

Twitter eagerly adopted by progressive, lazy Centuryon staffers

The Centuryon has eagerly begun posting news items limited to 160 characters or less on http://twitter.com/thecenturyon . The new technology is seen as ideal by staff members who can’t be bothered to invent an entire satirical piece running multiple paragraphs.

The traditional blog at http://centuryon.wordpress.com will continue to be operated for major news items and events that get completely under our skin (e.g., duty days). Meanwhile, breaking news items will be “tweeted” whenever we get around to them.

Stress-free human to speak on stress

Century College has invited the world’s only stress-free human, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, to speak about the dangers of stress.

Sapolsky, the world's only stress-free human

In his talk “Stress: Portrait of a Killer,” Sapolsky will explain how and why he gave up stress. “Well, it’s a killer,” he observed in an interview. “So I gave it up. Along with shaving, or anything else that might create stress.”

Sapolsky is expected to exort the Century crowd to avoid stressors at all costs. “If you have to do anything difficult, or on a deadline, that’s stressful,” a spokesperson explained, “so that kind of thing has to be avoided.”

Bulletin reveals presence of twins at Century

A groundbreaking report by the Century College Bulletin has revealed that among the thousands of students attending the school, two of them are actually twins.

The report sent shockwaves across the campus and immediately caused media observers to speculate that some kind of journalistic award would surely result.

“I don’t know what to think,” a stunned employee commented. “To think that with 15,000 students, two of them might even be siblings seems unlikely. But twins?”

Mathematicians were similarly befuddled at the longshot odds. “I’m not a twin, and my kids aren’t twins, so that seems pretty rare to me,” said an anonymous observer who happened to be standing near the math department.

The Bulletin did not credit the reporter who discovered this rarity nor explain how the facts were uncovered, although it is obvious that significant legwork and online research were necessary to break the story.

Other stories

• Geography department to offer “GPS for parking lot” course
• Bored Centuryon staffers eagerly await next “everyone” email
• Student returns to class, asks if “missed anything”
• Acknowledgement of Century as “Greatest College Ever” unexpectedly delayed

Logo mis-used

Century College officials confirmed today that they are working with federal, state, and local officials in a massive manhunt to find the individuals responsible for deliberate mis-use of the new college logo.

A Century administrator, obviously distraught, told the Centuryon “This is the most heinous act imaginable. While the logo is recognizable, that is not the approved color scheme, and I can’t even tell what font that is. It certainly isn’t Univers.”

The chilling crime has sent shockwaves through a community that has only begun to recover from news of Woody Woodduck’s Facebook page. “It’s just too much to take,” a typically overcome staffer said. “If they’re capable of this, they’re capable of anything.”

FBI agents expressed confidence that their analysis of the faulty logo would swiftly lead to an arrest and possibly some kind of new crime drama, probably on CBS. “I think ‘Logo Analysis Task Force’ sounds good,” an anonymous agent commented.

Until the guilty party is apprehended, members of the Century community are encouraged to be on the lookout for suspicious publications. Training in detecting logos that have been tampered with will be offered soon, and will count for three passport stamps. “These things evolve over time,” an expert explained, “so you have to be trained in how to recognize the counterfeits. Right now it’s color and font, but next it could be a mirror image or some kind of Photoshopping to screw with the image itself.

“You just never know what these bastards might try.”

Employee Reaction: the New Bulletin

Century College unveiled the new Bulletin recently. Here are some employee comments on the new format:

• “This is much more efficient. Now I can delete an entire week’s worth of ‘everyone’ emails with just one click!”
• “I really appreciated the summary of the keynote speaker [at staff development day]. Now if my supervisor asks about it, I’ll sound like I was there!”
• “I’m glad they’re still doing the profiles of employees. We’d hate to have to cancel the departmental betting pool.”
• “Lookee at all them pictures!”
• “What Bulletin?”

New Lot Solves Parking Crisis for 18 Minutes

The newly rebuilt parking lot on the west campus completely solved the longstanding parking crisis at Century College from 7:33 a.m. until 7:51 a.m. Monday morning. During that period, students and employees arriving for the first day of classes had no difficulty locating parking spaces.

“We can now proudly say that there is no parking problem at Century,” an administrator declared at 7:46.

As of 7:51, there were no available parking spaces on the west campus. An hour later, with no spaces available, the number of cars circling the lot nearly exceeded the number parked.

“Obviously there will be a breaking-in period,” a spokesperson explained. “Once students become more familiar with the traffic flow, they will give up on finding a parking space much sooner.”

However, an anonymous source acknowledged that today’s events suggested that the parking problem has not been completely solved. “But we have clearly done the right kind of work to address the issue,” the source insisted. “We only need another four or five similar projects before we can have a lasting solution.”

In the meantime, students and employees were uniformly impressed with the new lot.

“It looks great,” a typical student said. “And I should know: I’ve been driving around in it for an hour.”

“Just fantastic!” an employee agreed. “This is the nicest parking lot I’ve ever failed to find a space in.”

Study: 95% of employees cannot remember keynote

A study released today found that 95% of Century employees were no longer able to remembe what they learned in yestereday’s keynote address. Although most employees don’t know it, these results support the speaker’s contention that “surface learning” does not result in lasting knowledge.

The speaker, whose name onl 2% of employees could correctly recall, was pleased at the verification of his thesis and distressed at his complete failure to achieve impact due to the surface learning approach chosen by the audience.

“I’m shocked and dismayed to learn that attendance at a mandatory ninety-minute lecture doesn’t inspire more people to pursue deep learning,” he said through a spokesperson.

The study also found that 10% of employees could no longer remember their office or workspace locations, their passwords, or the location of their keys.

Other duty day headlines:

• Breaking news: Faculty union state president angry, worried
• Controversial report claims administrators demonstrate sense of humor
• Wellness committee protests ice cream social
• Two-campus approach to duty day scheduling leaves faculty confused about where to hide

Duty-licious!

Fall Duty Days theme: “Now What?”

Faced with exploding enrollment and dismal retention and completion numbers, Century College used the first of the fall “duty days” to turn to its employees with the timeless question, “Now what?”

“We face a crucial turning point,” the college president said in his opening address, “and we’re hoping some of you know where we should go.”

After the address, employees went to break-out sessions in which they were asked to come up with ideas to solve the ongoing problems. For many, this new approach was confusing.

“I had expected to get a nap in before lunch,” an anonymous employee complained. “But they put me in a small group and we had to come up with answers to questions.”

Nonetheless, the college was brimming with enthusiasm as the contemplated the combination of record enrollment and poor retention numbers. “This means we’re failing to achieve our goals for more students than ever!” an administrator declared.

Other duty day headlines:

• Several long-time employees still waiting in west theater for events to begin
• First parking lot complaint lodged at 8:09 AM
• Century to invest $28 billion in new “Clicker World” theme park
• Favre to come out of retirement, teach PE at Century College
• Apparently college president was gone for a while, or something
• Local faculty member prides self on ability to inject personal agenda into any small group

Academic Year in Review 2008-2009

It is time once again for our award-winning feature that demonstrates that most people cannot tell the difference between stuff that actually happened and stuff that we made up:

June-July

• Freed from the demand to provide handholding services to faculty, staff and administrators get 98% of their productive work for the year done in these two months.
• Parking lot condition downgraded to “crummy.”
• Eight hundred million new students attend SOAR, all on a Tuesday.

August

• “Duty Days” spark excitement until free food is gone.
• First items broken in new building.
• Despite widespread protests, classes start.
• Parking lot condition downgraded to “pothole-riffic!”

September

• Parking lot condition downgraded to “abysmal.”
• Legislature considers plan to tie funding to completely arbitrary sets of data. Facing political pressure, they agree to allow colleges to falsify the data.
• “Grand” opening of new building commemorates students still looking for their science classes.

October

• Student Success Day declared a “success,” narrowly avoiding logical contradiction that would have destroyed space-time continuum.
• First student successfully locates library, checks out only book on shelf.
• Parking lot downgraded to “No, really, abysmal: look it up.”

November

• GPS Lifeplan takes over college despite math department objections to simplistic “G + P = S” formula.
• Parking lot downgraded to “We’re going to fix it, really!”
• No expense spared to revise Century’s mission, vision, and value statements.
• Vandals steal bathroom doors from new building, inadvertently solving ADA compliance problem.

December

• Foundation’s attempt at fraud fails to net big donation.
• Employees required to claim that they have completed “code of conduct” training.
• Parking lot downgraded to “all potholes now filled with snow.”
• Semester mercifully ends.
• Centuryon inexplicably reaches 10,000 hit milestone.

January

• Foundation declares fundraising campaign a success despite widespread disbelief.
• Obama’s call for all Americans to get post-secondary education somehow fails to net Century big bucks.
• Parking lot downgraded to “now really filled with snow!”

February

• Citing really, really nasty weather, the college took this month off.

 

March

• Rhyming email inviting people to duty days backfires in what experts call “the most predictable outcome ever.”
• College breaks record with almost 52% of faculty returning from spring break.
• Parking lot downgraded to “Hello? Can anyone up there hear me? I’m in the pothole. Hello?”

April

• College holds professional development day, claims to value employees as required by AQIP, moves on.
• PR department attempts to pre-empt complaints about limited parking during the summer.
• Woody Woodduck obtains Facebook page, private jet

May

• College holds “Wood Duck Days” in capitulation to damands of deranged mascot.
• Anonymous blogger mixes lies, nonsense, satiric commentary.
• Parking lot repaved with 11,000 copies of Field Notes from a Catastrophe.

That’ll do for now. See you in August!