2 April 2019
Paige Turner
UCCS has decided to go completely paper by 2020, according to an emergency press conference on April 1. Computers will be rendered unnecessary in favor of worksheets and typewritten and handwritten essays.
“We feel strongly that our students’ well-being is a top priority. Addiction to technology — phones, the internet, stuff like that — it’s increasing every year,” said UCCS President Pomp Polonius in a school-wide announcement. He claimed the move back to paper will benefit the entire school by cutting down on such addiction.
After the plan is implemented, demand for librarians and filing cabinets are projected to increase by 47 percent, according to statistics professor Pam Quattuordecim.
She also calculated that technology addiction affects approximately 23 percent of the student body. Only 6 percent are currently seeking treatment, according to the UCCS Health and Wellness Center.
“We are in the middle of the Information Age, and our students are increasingly likely to have grown up surrounded by tech. I was speaking with a student just yesterday who told me she’s had social media accounts since before she was born. Her parents posted pictures of her ultrasounds to Facebook.
“Kids these days don’t know what it’s like to not have every answer at your fingertips. They’ve never had to search through library-book indexes for hours, trying to figure out the gestation period for wombats or looking up the Euler-Lagrange equation.
“Moving away from computers and back to paper will significantly cut down on internet addiction and build character. Sounds like a win-win to me.”
Concerns were raised about waste, and what this decision would mean for on-campus recycling efforts. Polonius replied, “The environment is important, sure, but here we have to think of our students. Climate change is going to be fixed by the generations of the future who pass through these halls. We can better equip them to focus on important issues by taking away trivial distractions like Wikipedia and Google.”
Several students at the press conference voiced objections to this plan during the Q&A segment, including political science major Carlita Commonsen. “Going back to exclusively paper will not adequately prepare us for the modern-day workforce!” she yelled.
She, and other like-minded students, were led away in handcuffs by onsite security minutes after the Q&A started. UCCS Public Relations says this was due to the students “causing an unacceptable ruckus and fostering insurrection.” The protesters will allegedly be released from campus jail after they have gone through an a formal education process. No information was given on how long that will take.
Administrators decided to donate all campus computers to various senior centers and retirement homes in the community.
“Senior citizens are so old anyway,” said vice dean Aggie Ism. “They’re probably more at risk for addiction to the internet than the youth, honestly. But they’ll die soon so it doesn’t matter.”
When asked about seniors’ stereotypical propensity for being unable to grasp or even outright rejecting technology, Ism replied, “That’s not our problem.”
Nontraditional student Gary Slickman, who returned to college to study finance after 40 years in marketing, is enthusiastic about the plan. “I used paper exclusively for decades. People have been doing it for centuries. It won’t be that hard to go back to a simpler time. Personally, I’m looking forward to it.
“I have many fond memories of the paper-cuts I got while frustratedly searching for a single worksheet buried under stacks of papers on my desk, and my roommate’s desk, and the floor, and in our three filing cabinets…Good times.”
UCCS intends to begin printing out all important documents and disposing of computer files immediately.
The Scribe’s website will be taken down on April 7. Future publications will only be available in print.