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Humanities Recruitment Actually a Front for Gathering Small Army

Written by: The MQ

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will almost definitely hurt you.
Photo by: Connor Gorry

Last month, UCSD’s Arts and Humanities Advantage (AHa) Outreach Internship Program received the Innovation Grant. The program focuses on recruitment for the department, but does not actually aim to increase enrollment for humanities majors. Rather, AHaOIP has been revealed as a front for UCSD’s recruitment of a small but formidable army.

On the surface, AHaOIP seems like an attempt to increase the arts enrollment at the school. As recruiter Andrea Jakeson said, “The goal of the program is to encourage prospective students to enroll as arts and humanities students, before they come to campus and realize how hostile the environment is for creative snowflakes.”

Though all seems quiet on their front, AHaOIP has already signed a plethora of documented deals with the University of California. Such documents outline some of the training exercises and guidelines the army will follow, but never state what purpose the army will serve.

According to AHaOIP’s records, students will be trained in the art of war, according to a program which gives GEs and GIs to every Joe. AHaOIP will use the UCSD campus as a military base: the demolition of the literature building next year will serve as a training exercise to prepare students for invasions in war-torn and radioactive zones. Next month, renovations to Galbraith Hall will be complete, facilitating its use as a mock naval station once the surrounding moat is filled with water. RIMAC field will hold practice runs for open-air battles, and the program has secured the canyon around Geisel for experimentation with guerilla warfare.

With a total campus enrollment of 35,821 as of Fall 2016, and only a fraction of those students belonging to the humanities department, the army will have to be small. Nonetheless, after Sierra magazine named UC San Diego “The Seventh Coolest School” in the nation in 2015, applications have increased threefold. Wanting to increase enrollment but lacking the room, UCSD seemed to be caught in a Catch-22. However, the construction of a seventh college might be the answer, since the college could function as both barracks and an armory.

Students are expressing concern over this revelation, especially as the army’s purpose is yet unknown. Leonard Tolsky, a communications major, had many thoughts on the topic: “This world already has so much war, and peace is what we need now. We need to say farewell to arms and, instead, welcome education. However, without an increase of funding for the arts and humanities, any kind of recruitment for them seems futile. I almost can’t believe UCSD would be so traitorous.”

Written by: Alexandria Vollhardt, Assistant Copy Editor

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