Trustees want YOU! (to think they care)

Megumi Rierson, staff writer

Whitman has recently undergone a number of name changes to the various campus institutions that promote a history of colonialism and a general white supremacist attitude. There’s that fun line slash thing in the title of The Pioneer, and we’ve confirmed in several ground breaking studies that, “Missionaries, missionaries, we’re on top!” just doesn’t have the same nostalgic, empowering ring that it used to. My personal opinion as one of Kathy Murray’s lowly subjects is that we become the Whitman Fighting Apologetics, but apparently not all of the autocrats in Memorial Hall share my lively sense of humor.

The Board of Trustees met this week to discuss such timely and relevant issues as raising the ASWC fee by ten dollars, making the duck pond a required Encounters text and using the budget surplus to buy the fraternities personal golf carts so they get a little more of their much needed freedom. The Trustees meeting on Friday was punctuated by several student protests to which several members of the board pretended to be sympathetic. Kathy Murray is determined to address student anger head on by changing the names of virtually everything at Whitman. Jewett Hall is now Nondenominational Hall, Anderson Hall has been changed to Anderson-and-daughter-and-any-other-pronoun-you-choose Hall and North is now North-South-East-West Hall because #AllDirectionsMatter. Recently the myWhitman portal has been changed to the myHistoryIsProblematic portal and Memorial Hall is now just We’re-Sorry-About-All-of-This Hall.

The Trustees and the administration hope these surface-level efforts at least give the impression that they care about student input and the lasting impact of colonial history, but some alumni have raised concerns about catering to the endless sensitivities of a coddled millennial generation. The disgruntled alumni were quickly appeased when they realized that all of the name changes are only relevant to current students, as the name of the college itself will remain unchanged as a steadfast tribute to Whitman’s history and world-renowned feet dragging.

In a recently leaked email to her more prominent constituents, Murray assured Trustees that the names of their beloved college institutions would revert to their old names just as soon as the angriest students graduate and find other irrelevant political battles to fight. In her email, Murray remarked that, “All we want to do is give these 20-somethings more chances to be right than they will be allowed in the real world, it’s one of the greatest rewards of higher education.”