In an act that many are referring to as “Footloose Part 2,” Stevens has canceled all fun on campus. In response to the rapidly growing coronavirus epidemic, all events with a predicted attendance above 50 people and any events expecting outside guests have been cancelled or are under review by the Stevens administration. This has resulted in the cancellation of events, such as Off Center’s improv comedy show, The Soviet Reunion, as well as many other less important events around campus.
While it makes sense to curb the spread of the feared COVID-19 as much as possible, it is not difficult to notice that these cancellation policies have not been consistently upheld. Take for example Pierce Dining Hall, which Off The Press estimates has an average of 50.8 (which is greater than 50) students dining at any given time of the day. Why is it okay to keep open a dining hall, where there are presumably over 100 million germs and where people are constantly putting things they just touched with their hands into their mouths, and it’s not okay to host an improv comedy show full of fun and enjoyment and where the most contagious thing there is laughter? Doctors even say laughter can boost one’s immune system. Can Pierce Dining Hall say the same thing about Sushi Fridays? I don’t think so.
You might be ready to excuse Stevens’ small acts of hypocrisy, but this whole coronavirus situation raises some BIG questions. The big one on our minds: will TechFest 2020 be cancelled? I mean, that’d be pretty messed up if they cancelled The Soviet Reunion and not TechFest, especially considering that TechFest usually has a larger attendance than Off Center for some reason. On the other hand, the Entertainment Committee has put a lot of work into selecting a performer less than half the school wants to see and not telling us who the performer is, and it would be a shame to see all that hard work go to waste.
Stevens officials have also said nothing regarding the Senior Design Expo. Given that the Expo will have over 1000 people in attendance from all over the world, it is basically guaranteed that somebody there is going to have coronavirus. Continuing to host Senior Design Expo would be like giving a child a barbecue chicken drumstick and expecting them not to get any sauce on their face, except the child would be Stevens, the drumstick would be the expo, the sauce would be coronavirus, and the child’s face would be all the people in attendance.
To circumvent the 50 student attendance limit, some clubs are considering the use of the Internet to hold long-distance events. Stevens Dramatic Society (SDS) told us, “We were thinking about using AOL Instant Messenger to host our upcoming musical.” SDS was kind enough to give us a sneak preview of one of the show’s dance sequences:
[12:05] BackgroundDancer1: *dances*
[12:05] BackgroundDancer3: *dances*
[12:06] BackgroundDancer2: *dances*
[12:06] LeadingActor1: *dances but in the front*
Despite Stevens allowing events to continue with smaller numbers of attendees (and, thus, smaller amounts of fun), they are also highly encouraging students to return home. One event organizer claimed, “We had an amazing info session planned out to inform the student body about the coronavirus and how to stay safe, but since everyone who was going to attend went home, we had to cancel.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also planned on hosting a handwashing event, but since there would be outside guests they also had to cancel.
Ever since Stevens pointed a vacuum to fun and turned it up to maximum suck, the student body has been scrambling to find new ways to entertain themselves. Many students have resorted to making a game out of achieving high scores on homework and exams, increasing the average GPA by 0.05. In response to this, Stevens has also cancelled classes to squander whatever joy we had left. Thankfully, The Stute is 100% serious and cannot be considered fun in any way, so it will continue to be published.
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