What the Faculty Really Do During Spring Meetings

During a recent discussion with a dorm fac, I gained insight into what Exeter’s faculty does during meetings block in the springtime. As it turns out, the agenda can be summed up in two words: bridge jumping.

Everyone congregates in the Elting Room to keep up appearances, but once the students are busy fighting over bagels in dhall, the instructors make a run for it. The tricky part isn’t actually avoiding the teenagers—it’s avoiding campus safety. In reality, campus safety is the only reason the adults on campus receive free coffee. The monitors figured that by luring teachers into Grill, fewer teachers would “take a walk” out by the softball fields.

While jumping, the various departments engage in competitions to see who can break the fewest hips. Points are awarded for flips, belly flops, dives and not dying. In turn, the points are translated into street cred. Street cred can be cashed in for a position as department head, dean, art instructor or exchanged for a t-shirt that says “risqué.” If someone snitches on the bridge jumping group, then the snitch automatically loses all street cred.

As my dorm fac was telling me all of this, I became distraught. Didn’t they know the perils of hurling one’s body into an orangeish brown river? I informed my rebellious dorm fac on the existence of lampreys in the water and their only response was, “Lampreys are safer than Harknessing with preps.” When told about the brain-eating amoebas that lurk in the depths, the teacher sat there for a moment and, after a bit of deliberation, said “That explains these papers I’ve been getting.”

Overall, the faculty bridge jump to blow off some steam and make themselves seem cool. They’re just like us, but older and with more fragile bones. So next time you see one of your teachers, make sure to invite them to bridge jumping fives. They’ll surely appreciate the gesture.