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Honors dorms to be integrated Entrepreneur wreaks havoc with 'honors on/off' machines by Elizabeth Barksdale, Staff Writer
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Horace Dweeblish, a student of sub-par
intelligence, sports a large 'H' courtesy of
Sylvester McMonkey McBean (below) |
CAMPUS — UT officials have announced plans to integrate the honors dormitories, citing university initiatives aimed at strengthening diversity.
"We feel that it's necessary to foster diversity, equality, and above all, a politically correct image for the University of Texas," stated President Larry Faulkner. "Academically outstanding students will benefit from increased exposure to their dumb-ass peers, and vice-versa." The chain link fence surrounding the Quad, a traditional symbol of the physical and ideological separation between honors and non-honors students, will be removed and absorbed by the Benedict-Mezes renovation project in a ceremony next week.
The announcement has been a cause for jubilation among students whose non-honors status has left them relegated to less-than-prestigious dorms.
"We've been kept down a long, long time," said Whitney Bergben, a Biology senior and long-time advocate for dorm integration. "But now I know that those who come to this institution after me can rise from the lowly halls of Jester, smelling of socks and degradation, into the likes of Carothers and Blanton-which represent opportunity and smell like unwashed smart people."
But not all students share the non-honors' joy, arguing that the University cannot possibly expect to equate honors and non-honors students and still maintain the traditional dominance of smart people.
"They say that everyone at UT is basically the same, mainly top 10 percent," says Bobby Spatz, a Physics, Biochemistry, and Electrical Engineering honors sophomore. "But I'm telling you, the people in the top 2 percent of their high school class were never meant to mingle with the toothless, ignorant denizens of the top 8. It's madness."
"We're a different class," agrees Jamie Limpt, a Plan VII Liberal Arts freshman. "I don't think I want to be a part of their group. Can they even read?"
The integration controversy has prompted entrepreneur and equal rights activist Sylvester McMonkey McBean to visit UT. After talking with some depressed non-honors students, McBean surprised officials by asserting that he could erase differences between the honors and non-honors populations and "fix them right up—for a small fee."
Since his arrival, the intrepid inventor of indeterminate species has converted Central Chilling Station 1 into a device that he calls the "Honors-On" machine. According to McBean, the machine has the ability to instantly transform average students into honors students.
"Honors dorms were deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court," explained McBean. "A provision of the University of Texas charter made it legal to separate morons from intelligent students as long as every university dorm provided the same inferior food products, cramped living space, and general lack of dignity." UT has consistently met these requirements for all dormitories, but social theorists and other proponents of integration argue that honors students are not exposed to adequate amounts of the poorly-constructed sexual innuendo and marijuana-related posters that typify non-honors dorm culture-and regular students don't get enough exposure to the type of esoteric word games, anti-social behavior, computer acronym-based puns, ideological fellatio of obscure philosophers, and general intellectual one-upsmanship that comes from a steady diet of high-octane academia.
"Underneath, the students are all the same, and that equality needs to be visible," said McBean. "That's why I built this machine."
"The thing looks kinda skeezy," former bonehead Greg Peterlon said of the Honors-On machine, "but this McBean guy said if I paid fifty bucks went and went through it, I'd be an honors student, so I was like, 'sweet.' He said I just had to crawl through this tubing and I'd come out with a red 'H' stamped on my forehead. I wasn't going to do it, but he told me he took Bevo Bucks and I thought, 'what the hell? It's not like it's my money anyway.' Now I'm honors and everybody knows it."
McBean responded to complaints from original honors students by shipping in equipment to construct an "Honors-Off" machine. The original honors students were soon paying McBean's fifty-dollar fee to become morons, identified with a large 'M.' Spatz, among the first in line, emerged de-honored, shouting, "I'm special again!"
"When I saw that it wasn't cool to be honors anymore, I paid another fifty bucks and went back to my old self," said Peterlon.
Representatives of the former honors dorms expressed dismay that no one could tell who had been honors and who hadn't before the arrival of Mr. McBean, who was last seen ambling toward the sunset in his homemade jalopy with a cash-stuffed carpet bag over his shoulder. |
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