Students Balk at DNA Samples

Students arriving at Student Success Day at Century College today were willing to present their student ID cards, be fingerprinted, and even to submit to retinal scans, but generally drew the line at being asked for a DNA sample.

These outcomes were the result of a joint experiment between the college’s psychology and political science faculty, who wished to find out what level of invasive scrutiny would be deemed “too much.”

Students arriving early in the day were asked to show their ID cards. After 9:00, students were also fingerprinted. Retinal scans were added later in the day, but students still mostly complied.

When greeters began asking for DNA samples, students refused to cooperate in large numbers.

“I had hoped we would reach the point where we requested a blood sample,” one of the study designers said, “but still, this is valuable data that reveals just how much students are willing to go through in order to know that they are being monitored safely.”

Suggested names for giving campaign

The Century Foundation announced yesterday that they are seeking suggestions for the name of the employee giving campaign, formerly known as “Lights for Learning.” Here are the leading suggestions to date:

• Put Up and We’ll Shut Up
• Don’t Make Us Garnish Your Pay
• Guilt for Gifts
• Finally, Someone Is Willing to Take Your Money
• Hurt ’til You Give
• Please please please please PLEASE
• Total Stealth Maximum Secrecy Confidential Giving Campaign
• If You Give, We Promise To Develop Some Kind of Bookkeeping System To Keep Track of It, This Time, No Really
• We Already Spent It

IT scraps old system, starts over

The Century College IT department today unceremoniously scrapped the college’s entire Internet, email, and phone system, planning to gradually rebuild a new communications system from scratch.

The unannounced change left employees briefly puzzled as to how to continue their online fantasy football drafts and partially solved Soduko puzzles.

“Out with the old, in with the new,” and IT press release said. The release outlines a plan for gradually developing the technology and infrastructure necessary for high-speed communication between the college and the outside world. “We plan to have a functional telegraph system by spring,” the release promised.

In the meantime, emergency semaphore stations have been set up on the roofs of campus buildings.