Woody Woodduck building opens

Mid-Century Report: January 18, 2051

Century College today celebrated the grand opening of the new “Woody Woodduck” Center. This is the first new building on campus since the Science/Library building opened in the first part of the century.

The building was originally proposed as space primarily for classrooms and faculty offices, but as the project worked its way through college and state bureaucracies, certain changes were made. The building, officially unveiled today, features offices for all fifty-seven GPS Lifeplan Assistant Directors, as well as a virtual reality theater/gameroom, student lounge, student government headquarters, and private meeting rooms for all sixty-nine recognized student organizations.

“At long last, student services is given a place of their own,” a proud administrator boasted. “Gone are the days when college campuses are thought of as places full of classrooms and faculty offices. This is the new Century!”

The center is named in honor of Woody Woodduck (1999-2049), the college’s fallen mascot.

Legislature blasts Century for success measures

Mid-Century Report: December 12, 2050

The Minnesota state legislature today attacked Century College and other MnSCU institutions for “hiding behind false measures” of student success. According to legislatures, Century’s claims of success based on student retention, award completion rates, and transfer rates, are “misleading, meaningless junk.”

The college has long declared itself a leader in “student success,” citing impressive-sounding statistics. According to the college, nearly 98% of its students complete a certificate each month, thanks to the innovative “build-your-own-certificate” program. Additionally, the vast majority of students either transfer to another educational institution or return for additional classes at Century.

Today, lawmakers said they were not impressed.

“Anybody can just give out awards or make students want to come back,” a typical state representative declared. “We want to know if students are really learning the complex disciplines necessary to get by in our, you know, world. It’s outrageous that Century thinks that we care about their retention rate or how many students get one of their ‘welcome to college’ certificates. Nobody cares about that, and nobody ever has. All that matters, and all that will ever matter, is producing highly educated graduates.”

The college, in response, immediately announced twelve new task forces, seven new committees, and fifty-four new initiatives aimed at lowering student retention and increasing student mastery of difficult subjects. “Century has always been concerned only with students mastering difficult material,” the college president said. “We have no other measure of student success.”

Century cracks down on clone-related cheating

Mid-Century Report: November 22, 2050

Century College today announced bold new measures to crack down on clone-related cheating at the college. “We will no longer allow cheap, genetically-identical copies of a student to do work in the student’s name,” a college spokesperson allowed.

The college became convinced that there was a problem when student Nick Anderson enrolled for every class the college offered in spring semester, thus completing three degrees and ninety-four certificates in just 16 weeks. It turns out there are 200 “Nick Andersons,” all genetically identical. The original “Nick” stayed home, played VR games, and then recycled his clones once they had earned him multiple academic awards.

Yet action has been hindered by the college’s “Clones and Clans” club, which protested any actions that would hurt the cause of clone rights. “Genetic identicality is just something people are hatched with,” a club spokesperson said. “No one should be punished just because they are the nineteenth or twentieth person to have the same DNA.”

To deal with the problem, the college is now requiring all students to daily submit DNA sequences along with all coursework and exams. This DNA will be submitted to unspliceme.com for analysis to determine whether the student is the student, or a clone of the student, or a clone of a clone of the student, or what.

Yet the college admits that this is just the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the threat of academic dishonesty.

“It’s a complicated world. For exams, we put people in anti-telepathy rooms with carefully filtered net access to prevent any cheating. But the other day, a student was caught actually physically looking at another student’s answers! No matter what we do, they’ll always think of something new.”

November is “Wisconsin Awareness Month”

Mid-Century Report: November 1, 2050

Century College will observe “Wisconsin Awareness Month” in November, the college’s office of foreign, alien, and unidentifiable students announced.

In recent years, the number of students coming from Wisconsin has increased, leading the college to feel a need to better educate its employees and students of how to make these foreigners feel welcome.

Events for the month include an authentic Wisconsin meal (students $20, employees $50) featuring “cheese curds” and an interactive event in which Wisconsin immigrants explain the rich cultural significance of the colors green and gold.

“We realize that it can be difficult for people who come from such different cultures, so we want to make them feel welcome,” a college spokesperson said. “To all the Wisconsinians, we say, welcome to America!”

4-day weekend commemorates “MEA”

Mid-Century Report: October 18, 2050

Century College will cancel classes Thursday and Friday as part of the traditional holiday to commemorate “MEA.”

“It is a solemn time of year,” the college’s president said via virtual reality feed from Mars. “We must never forget what MEA means to all of us.”

Yet the college’s (adjunct) history instructor is unable to fully explain the holiday: “We know that MEA must have been very important to our ancestors, because they devoted a 4-day weekend to honoring it every year. So we try to honor it in the same way they did. Whatever it is.”

Similar confusion surrounds the holidays “St. Jimmy’s Day” and “Metro Allies Day” that take place sometime in the spring, although the exact dates of their celebration vary according to a complex formula understood by only a few. This similarity to Easter leaves some to believe that they were originally religious in nature, yet their observance continues even though Century College receives nearly 1% of its operating budget from public, government money.

We can only hope that the spirit of MEA lives on in our attempt to honor it.

Faculty: Students can’t write anymore

Mid-Century Report: September 21, 2050

Faculty members at Century College agree: college students can no longer write as well as they used to.

“I assigned a simple hyperspace analysis paper,” a typical faculty member from the Interstellar Studies department said, “and I was shocked at the poor results. No one understands real-time intuitive source linking, and a lot of them can’t even make a 3d cover properly.”

Across the college, faculty agree that student writing shows how completely the intelligence of humans has diminished over time. “My student’s paper on telepathic ethics and the evolution of hiveminds was full of comma errors,” an anonymous faculty member said. “I don’t understand it.”

The English department seems powerless to correct the problem, despite offering a sequence of fifteen developmental writing classes and a full 2-credit course of college composition. “We keep giving them lectures about passive voice and split infinitives,” the department chair explained, “but nothing seems to help.”

Book orders due for Fall 2055

Mid-Century Report: September 9, 2050

The Century College bookstore reminded faculty that book orders for the fall semester of 2055, in accordance with the new state law passed last year.

The law, titled “Citizen’s Guaranteed Affordable Education, Tax Reduction, and Puppies for Everbody Act of 2050,” requires faculty members to notify bookstores of their book selections at least five years in advance of teaching a course. “Parents have a right to know exactly what books their children will be studying in the not-to-distant future,” the bill’s primary sponsor said. “In this age of tachyon communication and experimental time travel, it is not too much to ask that those who are teaching, or will be teaching, at a college use these expensive means to determine far ahead of time what books they will assign half a decade from now.”

While everyone agrees that today’s eighth graders are well served by knowing what books will be required in courses they might take as college freshmen, not all faculty find the law easy to comply with.

“I mean, come on,” the chair of the laser warfare department said, “we’re only just now finalizing the teaching schedules for 2053. The draft of fall 2055 isn’t due for another two weeks! And now my faculty are supposed to be picking books already?”

The demand proves especially difficult for faculty who discover they will be changing credentialed fields or retiring altogether. Yet the biggest challenge comes for those who are not yet teaching, such as an anonymous Clone Studies student who recently got a harshly worded brainmail demanding an immediate book order. “Apparently I’ll be an adjunct in five years,” she observed. “But I’m just taking my first class now, so, I’m not really sure how to pick a book.”

Still, the law’s requirements are clear, and the benefits to those who might eventually take classes from the college are obviously more important than any other work faculty might be engaged in for their present students.

Parking “best ever”

Mid-Century Report: August 24, 2050

Century College officials today confirmed that the new academic year has gotten off to a great start, with parking at the school the “best it’s ever been.”

According to campus security, nearly 10% of students and employees have been able to park their hovercars in an official parking space on campus. The remainder are still forced to find more creative solutions.

“This year only five hovercars were illegally parked on the lake,” a college spokesperson announced, “and three of those sank when they ran low on power, so that problem got solved.”

The Department of Parking Studies issued a report yesterday saying that the last legal parking spot on campus was claimed on Sunday afternoon at 3:04 p.m., nearly 17 hours before the start of the first class on Monday morning. “This is a dramatic improvement over five years ago, when the last space was taken on the 4th of july,” the report notes.

Still, the college allows that some improvement might be possible. It continues to seek funding for its proposed General Mills Target 3M Minnesota Twins parking structure. As a last resort, administrators suggested that students might explore the possibility of public transportation, as there is still one weekly route connecting the college with downtown St. Paul.

Duty Weeks Conclude

Mid-Century Report: August 17, 2050

Today marked the unofficial end of “duty weeks” at Century College. This three-week period of “crucial” professional training is an annual event at the college. The event began on July 25, 2050, with the secretary of the assistant to the vice-president of professional development giving an opening address welcoming employees back to work. The president of the college was not available to attend but greeted workers via a pre-recorded message.

After this joyful welcome, the three weeks passed quickly, with promotional virtual reality movies for various work areas such as radiation compliance and the office for mutated students; motivational, keynote, and inspirational speakers;  breakout sessions on a wide range of topics; and various mandatory morale-building events.

Attendance at the events is mandatory for faculty and most staff. Only faculty members with 25 years of service at the college can have accumulated enough personal and sick time to miss more than half of the “duty weeks” events.

“When we increased the number of duty days to more than the number of allowed personal days, that was a breakthrough,” a spokesperson for the college said. “Now we can go back to school with full confidence that every employee has been compelled to be involved in at least one sing-along, dance, trust-building exercise, or awkward conversation on a topic they know nothing about.”

“Duty weeks” technically continue through Friday, although only faculty and staff in particular areas are required to attend the remaining sessions on blood-borne mutagenics.

The Mid-Century Report

In conjunction with the department of Tachyon Narrowcasting Technologies (est. 2047), the Centuryon is proud to present “The Mid-Century Report,” an award-winning* series of articles detailing events at Century College during the 2050-2051 academic year.

These articles are presented in their entirety, representing the news from the middle of the 21st century as it will be reported at that time.

The department of temporal philosophy is unable to determine whether these reports represent “the” future, “a” possible future, “several” possible futures, or “something else.” Nevertheless, the Centuryon is happy to present these exclusive reports with full confidence that they are every bit as reliable as all the news reported here.

Enjoy your look into the wonders of the future!

* According to the department of Tachyon Narrowcasting Technologies, this series will win an “Ahead of Its Time” journlism award in 2039.