This article is from The Wellesley News’ annual satire edition.

Each month the campus is set ablaze with talk of Shafer’s latest ~incident~. From floods to fires, many have been left wondering exactly how the Quint’s *hottest* dorm (number one in our hearts, fifth alphabetically) managed to incur such biblical wrath. Some students have even been overheard excitedly ruminating over which plague is most likely to occur next, with some noting a particular excitement for “frogs.”

“I’ve always personally wondered whether it was lots of small frogs or one big one. I’m ready for more once-in-a-lifetime climate events, especially when I’m not the one who has to experience them,” remarked an unnamed east-side student.

As Shafer residents are left to sweat it out, admin has responded with increasingly vague statements from various members of leadership about their plans to resolve the issue. Last week, however, in a sizzling senate turnaround, it was announced that the fires were actually an intentional element of dorm residential life initiatives to “increase our school’s excellence” now officially approved by the Board of Trustees. 

“We are excited to announce the official launch of our pilot-program dorm community: Out of the Frying Pan (and unreasonably far from (Lulu’s) Grill). We are so excited to find students who are the perfect match. As a school we are constantly looking for ways to reinvigorate our students and community. Many studies have shown that students perform better under pressure, and we took that to heart. If we fire up our students today, this ensures they won’t be fired from their future careers. We not only listen to our community, we hear them. We are ready to turn up the heat. We unequivocally reject any rumors that these fires were maliciously set by Shafer residents in an attempt to ensure they move up the list for the 10 year dorm renovation plan, on the contrary, this is the renovation,” read an email from PJ this Friday. 

Polling of the campus community has returned mixed results, with some members of the community left with burning questions. 

“As an economics professor I’ve been forced to relocate to the mods this year, and all of this makes me wonder whether the floods in PNE were just a failed initiative to get us fired up, but I think we’re more of a go-with-the-flow department. It’s a lot to endure, on top of all this I wouldn’t want to be fired,” said one heated respondent. 

Other respondents chose to look on the bright side.

“Personally, I’m stoked! I’ve found this to be a fantastic on-the-ground marketing strategy experience. We’ve had to reimagine how to present this to prospies. I would love to see this initiative included on the Wellesley 100. I really think it helps us stand out as a school, and the PR opportunities are priceless: where else would students be getting such a firsthand look at crisis mitigation? Everyone always has things to say about the Shafer fires, like this is ‘absurd,’ or ‘worrying,’ or ‘can this please stop?,’ but no one’s saying ‘can this please stop?’ to climate change. Talk about fires. The hypocrisy is deafening,” said L’Arson Pyers ’26.

Whatever the result of this new initiative, Shafer is sure to end the year in a blaze of glory.