Last Fall Quarter, I got a phone call from a friend telling me that “state schoolers” were coming to Northwestern to throw a “How to Party Like a State School” bash. Having never studied the genus or familia of a “state schooler,” I looked them up in Webster’s. Apparently, a state schooler is a person “whose parents don’t love them enough to send them to a private institution.”
Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the promise of their spectacle — it would be like seeing the Komodo dragon at the Shedd Aquarium, elusive yet dangerous. I arrived to find that I was already too unfashionably late. Yes, the party was well on its way. It was 4 p.m.
Looking around at these wild animals, I saw something different: something odd, yet interesting. At Northwestern, we like to think that a ratio of handles to people is good at around 1:15, give or take a few. At state schools, they do their fractions a little differently. For them, I noticed that a ratio of about 1:1 seemed to be a little more appropriate.
Why, you might ask? Because for state schoolers, the game of choice is not a childish round of beer pong or flippy-dippy cup, but a short-lived game called “everybody-get-a-handle-and-when-I-say-go-see-how-long-you-can-chug-it-for.” Fascinating creatures, I know.
After another rousing game of “let’s-see-how-many-cigarettes-we-can-put-out-on-people’s-hands-before-they-notice,” everyone was either passed out or put on an AMBER Alert. The party had finally come to a decisive conclusion.
The following day, I sat in my microeconomics class and pondered the consequences of such an event. What does it mean when insignificant groundlings come to our house and show us how to party? How disrespectful, right? Are our students not capable of such debauchery?
To be honest, I think we are. This is why I put a challenge out to President Henry Bienen, a man whose job is — in part — cultivating Northwestern’s prestigious image. Really, what’s a better way to do that than fixing our lacking party scene? We have Ivy League academics, why not lecherous state school partying? After all, we want to be well-rounded students.
I know, many of you will say that Bienen is just as dedicated to Northwestern as any NU student — but yet, he is also one of the few I’ve never seen at a theatre fundraising party. Do you call that dedication? I think not.
Yes, Bienen, I invite you to come out and party with us. You’ll see all of our pros and cons. You may even see why we’re not a Top 10 school according to U.S News and World Report. And then, just maybe then, you’ll realize that the money spent to build another J-school in Qatar was money that could have gone into an initiative that I have taken the liberty of titling, “Handles for Examples.”
Basically, it’s a program in which the university buys every student a handle of their choice and then sets the example that private institutions can too party like a state school. After doing some math, it seems that such a program could potentially increase our applicant pool by millions, if not trillions. And with Bienen’s retirement date quickly approaching, I think an all-night rager should be in place with the people who make the school that you get a paycheck from: the students.