Image by Jaysen Zhang
MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY—A whistleblower from the Office of the President has disclosed that President Bollinger has run his most recent COVID-19 address through Google Translate. According to the source, Bollinger’s email was translated into Pasho, Zulu, Kinyarwanda, and then finally into English in an attempt to ensure the fewest number of university affiliates understood its content.
Anxiety over whether campus will open for the Fall semester has reached a tipping point for many Columbia students and little has been done to quell rumors that the University will keep its doors shut during the fall. Although the President has regularly updated the Columbia community on the COVID-19 situation with abstruse emails peppered with all kinds of nonsense, the latest email left students and faculty scratching their heads as to what the message could mean.
“I was honestly so confused when I saw the message in my inbox” admitted William F. Alexander CC’24 of Saratoga Springs, NY. “I’m already stressed out about all the Iliad reading I need to do over the summer, now I need to think critically about emails? Give me a break.”
Professor Jonathan A. Hofstadter of the Horticology Department struck a similar tone, pointing out that a particularly stressful semester requiring instructors to rework entire curricula and figure out how to mute themselves when they need to use the bathroom during lectures has left him “one shit away from resigning altogether.” Hofstadter went on to explain that he “wants a simple one-pager” when it comes to COVID-19 emails because he “has enough theses to read this time of year.”
To ease the minds of the Columbia community, the linguists at the Federalist have painstakingly translated the contents of President Bollinger’s email to make it easier to understand:
Dear Columbia,
Class is over and it has been memorable.
Thank you medical workers. We are having an online commencement. We are working on the logistics of reopening next year.
ON JULY 1st, WE WILL PROVIDE MORE DETAILS ABOUT HOW THE FALL 2020, SPRING 2021, AND SUMMER 2021 TERMS WILL BE COMPOSED.
From my humble abode in Morningside, Jean and I wish you well.
Sincerely,
PrezBo
