Following concern over low enrollment, UCCS announced that they will be shrinking classrooms as a way to highlight their value for low class sizes.
“We want all students to feel like they can get personal attention from their teachers,” newly appointed campus architect Minnie Skewell said in a campus-wide email. “We will bring everyone closer by literally bringing them closer.”
Students and teachers experienced this abrupt change across campus at 12 p.m. on March 6, as the walls of every classroom suddenly started moving inward and stopped when the length and width of the rooms had each decreased by about 7.5 feet on each side.
“It’s like the scene in ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ when the crew has to jump into a trash compactor to hide from the storm troopers, and Luke is pulled underwater by the dianoga,” sophomore film major Brad “Obi-Wan” Wilson said.
Wilson went on to describe the origins of the dianoga monster as described by George Lucas in the “Star Wars” archives. At this point, our correspondent attempted to move away from Wilson to ask other people questions but could not, as they were newly wedged between a desk and a wall. Wilson therefore continued the discussion for the next three hours while the whole Columbine classroom waited for security to come and get them out.
Complaints erupted across campus as students who could still reach their phones filmed videos of classrooms in squished disarray. Students and teachers alike were pressed together and unable both to continue class, and to leave.
In one Dwire classroom, a quirky girl with thick glasses and a ponytail was shoved into the awkward boy with messy hair sitting next to her. Developments unfolding.
The Scribe approached Skewell for comment but was unable to understand her voice through the crack in the door to her office, as her face was pressed against the wall.
“Mfrghghmr mphrghr,” Skewell said.
When the fire department extracted Skewell from her office, she was able to speak well enough to admit that she had made a pact with a team of carnivorous gnomes to harvest the entire university for them. The gnome magic was the reason the rooms shrank so quickly, according to Skewell.
“It was either me or the campus,” Skewell said. “If the rooms go back to normal, I have to be their prisoner for eternity.”
In what witnesses called a “noble but upsetting and weird act of sacrifice,” Skewell shouted words in a language no listener could understand and was carried away from UCCS by a group of angry gnomes shortly thereafter. Listeners could hear Skewell’s cry of “Go mountain lions!” as the gnomes bore her body away. The classrooms then reverted to their original size.
Campus administration is expected to explore new ways of boosting enrollment that involve fewer gnomes.
Photo via the UCCS Photography Database.