UPDATE FROM THE COLLEGE: TO BOOST GRADUATION RATE, STUDENTS ON ACADEMIC PROBATION WILL BE EXECUTED

There has been a rise of unease among students in the College following a recent email from President Alivisatos and Dean Rasmussen, which notified the College that in order to boost its 4-year graduation rate, UChicago would be executing all students on academic probation at the end of each quarter.

In the email, the administrators recognized that “this decision may marginally increase student stress,” but urged students to “continue [their] studies as normal, putting in the high level of effort the world has come to expect from The University of Chicago.” According to the email, as long as this standard of excellence is maintained, students have nothing to worry about.

Students who are currently on academic probation, or at risk of it, are plenty worried after it was announced that the executions would take place in Mandel Hall at the end of Reading Period, to be open to the public and live-streamed to those who cannot attend. The justification for this spectacle is that it will “both set an example for current students and show prospective students (and their parents) that we are committed to academic rigor.” In an effort to ease prospects’ fears about being brutally murdered, Alivisatos has also added a clause stating that students can buy their way out of execution for $1,000,000. Any student on financial aid is automatically disqualified from this exception.

Organizations such as Undergraduate Student Government have pushed back against the administration’s decision, citing its “barbaric” and “discriminatory” nature. “No student’s life is worth a few extra applications from high schoolers who want to prove they’re smart,” one USG member stated in a public response to the announcement. The University has not responded.

Yet the response to this policy change has not been entirely negative, with economics professors such as Allen Sanderson praising it for encouraging “survival of the fittest,” even making the quarterly executions mandatory for their students. “If you don’t want to die, just study harder,” said Sanderson in a recent lecture, shortly before docking 50 points off a student’s exam for putting an M-dash in the word “macroeconomics.”

Student wellness has seen an uptick in engagement, starting immediately after the email was sent to College students. They are unprepared and unable to deal with this influx of stressed students, especially considering the quality of their care during normal times. However, they have tried to focus less on individual students and more on rephrasing the policy change as a good thing, stating that “getting bludgeoned to death beats dying of old age with the knowledge that you’ve disappointed everyone you hold dear” and “if you get executed, at least you won’t have to take finals!”