We at The Miscellany News would like to express our discontent with the Administration’s policy of adding 0.25 to the GPA of every student-athlete at the end of their season. While we recognize that it is part of President Hill’s well-known master plan to turn Vassar into a campus of solely straight cis-male sciences-taking athletes, we view the GPA addition as a step too far. While we acknowledge that although a grueling athletic schedule can make it difficult to balance both work and school, we disagree with the Administration’s official view that athletes are here under divine right, much like King Louis XIV of France.
In an emailed statement, President Hill defended the Administration’s decision to boost the GPA of athletes. “Our athletes are in such fantastic shape that they simply do not have enough blood left to flow to their brain. It’s science! You see, it is a very complicated process, explained to me in depth by Roman Czula, in which the athlete’s fatigued muscles require the use of all fluid and blood in their body in order to recover. The blood that is left over is enough to keep the heart pumping and basic motor function going. They can even form coherent sentences, such as ‘I would like two hamburgers, please.’ It’s really not fair to ask much more of them than that.” We cannot verify the accuracy of this scientific statement, because most of us here at The Miscellany News are humanities majors.
We must admit that the GPA boost is not entirely unexpected. It is clearly a part of the “bring-athletes-who-like-science-to-VC-and-therefore-ruin-everything” plan that President Hill began to implement years ago. In fact, the campus these days is essentially crawling with straight male athletes. “I can’t go on any more dates!!” an unidentified female screamed in an exasperated manner from the quad. She went on to proclaim that she, as a straight woman, was simply overwhelmed by the amount of straight men who wished to pursue her, and that she just wanted a break from all of the men clamoring for commitment.
The GPA boost, while understandable when one views the scientific facts, seems unfair to those of us who frequently go to the gym, or sometimes lift up our computer screens in order to watch “House of Cards” on Netflix. We call for more transparency, as the hegemony that is Vassar is problematic. This decision is a heteronormative paradigm that only reinforces the intensity of the patriarchy. The GPA is, we would like to clarify, a social construct that should be seen as gender neutral and not as the result of a binary. Foucault.
Roman Czula and Don Marsala weighed in on the GPA boost in a co-written email. “OUR ATHLETES CUPS RUNNETH OVER! We feel that our athletes are the most likely on this campus to abscond to the farm and run around it in a deer costume, making deer noises, leading to their untimely death. Therefore, to STAY HEALTHY HAPPY AND IN THE PINK, WE REALLY WANT AND SUPPORT AND LOVE THIS GPA BOOST.” The Miscellany does not entirely see the connection between running on the farm dressed as a deer and a GPA boost, but we respect the enthusiasm of the statement.
The purpose of the GPA boost, although highly scientifically backed, simply does not embody the spirit of equality that we expect from Vassar College. We hope that in the future, before making rash decisions such as building “a new science building” or trying to give the athletes some credit, the Administration thinks before they act.
—This Staff Column would represent the opinion of at least 2/3 of the Editorial Board if it weren’t an April Fools’ prank.