Commons Program Events Overtakes Greeklife in Popularity

HAMILTON, NY — As Colgate University celebrates its bicentennial and looks forward to the next two hundred years, fraternities across campus mourn the loss of their social relevance as students opt to participate in the Commons program instead of joining Greek Letter Organizations.

“We have never had an issue getting guys to come to our Super Bowl event,” said senior Jack White of Phi Tau, “but this year Dart Colegrove Commons was hosting a meditation session at the same time and everyone was there instead.”

White is not the only Colgate student confused by the emergence of the Commons as a social outlet. Sophomore David Rossman voiced his concerns with the Commons program to the Rag, saying, “I’m in charge of pledges for my fraternity, and if things keep going this way, we are not going to get enough guys.” Rossman has repeatedly reached out to first-years to invite them to rush events, but has found himself turned down in favor of bubble tea and face masks with Brown Commons. “It has gotten to the point where I check Colgate’s campus calendar to make sure the Commons aren’t hosting anything before I plan a rush event,” said Rossman.

Colgate’s long tradition of Greek life has been dominant on campus for decades. However, many first-year students are choosing to forgo rush in favor of the Commons program. “The Commons offers me every social opportunity I need on campus,” said first-year Trevor Sanders. “I would much rather paint pottery and watch a movie than play pong in some dirty basement.”

The Colgate administration is excited by the success of the Commons among first-year students. “It doesn’t surprise me, really,” said Dean McLoughlin, “I knew that if students just took a chance on trivia and baking, they would fall in love with the Commons program and the opportunities it provides.”

While first-years and the administration bask in the triumph of the Commons program, members of fraternities are left to wonder what this will mean for their social standing on campus. “I guess we took it for granted that guys would want to rush every year,” said junior Charlie Collins. “At least every other frat is in the same boat.”

In a moment of historic transition on Colgate’s campus, the past 200 years are being put to rest as Greek life moves from the epicenter of the social scene to just a distant memory. And in the place once held by sweaty bodies and Keystone, comes friendship bracelets and hot chocolate sponsored by the Colgate administration.

Weird and Mediocre Publication Celebrates a Decade of… this?

HAMILTON, NY — The aptly named “Monthly Rag” celebrated a full decade of serving the Colgate community as deforestation material and drunk toilet paper. From its humble beginnings being stapled to the billboards in the library to its humbler modernity being read by you for some incomprehensible reason, the Rag has been shitting on Colgate for ten years now and everyone is slightly worse off for it.

Originally, the Monthly Rag was named because it was printed on the torn, stolen clothing of unsuspected students who Rag reporters, then called “Raggers”, ambushed and knocked unconscious in the Donovan’s parking lot. The first three years of the Rag’s history were marked by the Rag-Colgate war, which ended in a peace treaty wherein the Student Government Association agreed to give the Rag a yearly stipend of $10 to purchase a box of crayons and a notebook. The first four editions of the Rag were crudely drawn over the pages of that single notebook and passed around one-by-one in the Coop until an intrepid editor-in-chief managed to steal a printer from the Maroon News, which is still being used to date. But even though the magazine was no longer printed out on rags, it was still a rag at heart, and the content has never improved from the days of the Raggers and likely never will.

“Why are we still funding that piece of shit?” daid Student Government Representative Nathan Yudopolis upon being told of the Rag’s tenth anniversary. “All they do is whine about cooler people and make up stories about Beta. Didn’t they run a piece last month calling us do-nothing assholes?” After these statements, Nathan noticed the nearby Rag reporter, who was promptly pointed out and choked out by four SGA members who reportedly shouted “CAN’T HIDE BEHIND YOUR SATIRE NOW, RAG BOY” to the unconscious Rag reporter. Further reports will come as the situation develops, although the Monthly Rag is already reassembling a team of Raggers to secure a steady supply of printing material for the inevitable defunding that will be announced with the next budget proposal.

Tastes Like Loneliness

This month can be hard on all the sad single people out there who promote things like “Galentine’s” or “Brolentine’s” Day unironically, which at this hook-up obsessed school is pretty much everybody. Luckily, with alcohol by your side, you’re never truly alone. Drink up, you sad bitch.

Materials:

(1) bottle of a champagne of your choice—we here at The Rag support a nice Blanc de Noirs of a decent year

(4) bottles of the shittiest red wine you can find (1) heart-shaped box of chocolates

Instructions:

– Start off by toasting to your own singleness with your bottle of champagne. Every time you remember how much better this would be with another person, chug like you’re trying to refuel your tear ducts with wine.

– When the champagne is gone (like all of your potential lovers), crack open the first bottle of red and sip when:

– You see an annoying couples’ Instagram post
– You hear someone say, “I love you”
– You open Tinder in an attempt to find someone—anyone—who will fill the void that currently occupies where your heart was

Sex Position: The Seduction Ceremony

The Monthly Rag would like to take a moment to congratulate the new members of Konosioni by providing everyone with a sex-ritual akin to Kono’s own Induction Ceremony, complete with huge-ass robes and candles among other objects of questionable purpose and nature. First, initiate coitus at the base of Colgate’s hill, continuing upwards each time someone calls Campus Safety. Along the way, you are required to stop at the most scenic locations our campus has to offer, such as the Persson Steps, Case’s patio-bridge-thing, the Academic Quad, and everyone’s favorite: Frank Dining Hall, in order to take in everything Colgate has offered you (read: nothing). Once you reach Foggy Bottom, immediately ruin your partner’s orgasm, because it turns out you never got your second PE credit and have to take another semester before graduating.

Class-Cancelling Petition Proves Students are Weenies

HAMILTON, NY — As if hard-ass alumni needed any more reason to dislike the current student body, a recent student-led petition to cancel class in the face of “inclement weather” and “frostbite warnings” reached a total of roughly 3,000 signatures. In its usual style of doing something- -but not the right thing–the administration cancelled a few classes to make the Canada-Goose-wearing, hypersensitive, binge-drinking snowflakes just shut the fuck up.

Approximately 46 milliseconds after the petition was posted on Change.org, countless graduates began ranting via Facebook about how Colgate has “gotten soft,” reminiscing on the good ol’ days when professors would rail some dirty white lightening off a copy of Ecce Homo before busting out a lecture on racial phrenology. One alumnus, Richard Kickem, ‘34, approached The Monthly Rag willingly for comment under the impression that people would give a shit about what he had to say, “You have all the stupid millennials believing blatant lies like ‘global warming’ and ‘equality’; it makes me fucking sick. If the world’s heating up, why are you cancelling class because it’s too cold? You are weak, spineless babies who will never know the struggles I went through on the hill, living off of nothing but my trust fund and an 8 ball a week.”

Kickem’s words were but a brief example as to how the climate at Colgate (both literally and metaphorically) is changing. In addition to this statement, The Monthly Rag received an upwards of 4,200 responses to the petition, ranging from rather tame post-Vietnam yuppieisms to all-out rants—some not even attacking the petition but instead viewing it as an opportunity to complain about other things on campus, such as the development of the WMST Center in recent history, the removal of everyone’s favorite Greek Organizations “friend groups,” and Colgate removing their previous limit on how many minorities they would willingly accept at any given time. (Please read into the history of Colgate for more info.)

“See, my problem isn’t that women are now allowed at Colgate, it’s that they seem to have forgotten the original purpose of their admission,” explained one Henry “Tiny” Johnson, ‘73. “They were brought here so the hard-working men could find appropriate wives; we even gave their rooms access to ironing boards and extra hanging rods so they could understand womanly duties!”

The words of both Kickem and Johnson may be harsh for our now-sensitive ears. Maybe the student body has gone soft in their lack of rampant objectification of women and concern for their own safety and wellbeing when climbing up an ice-coated mountain. In times like these, both Johnson and Kickem recommend that we all pay attention to the real men on campus: Theta Chi, Men’s Lacrosse, and Beta Theta Pi—the boys who could never do wrong.

BREAKING: Student Government Does Literally Nothing, Again

HAMILTON, NY — Last week, bored first year Yikah Mack mistakenly clicked on the latest Student Government Association email reminding Colgate students to rideshare, marking the first time a non-SGA member has paid any attention to the association since that time in 2014 when people protested.

“Wait, SGA hasn’t been shut down this entire time? Isn’t that what the whole government shutdown thing is about?” responded confused senior Leah Knight when asked about her feelings on recent Student Government actions. “What the fuck is SGA actually supposed to be doing again? Do they, like, actually have a job?”

Leah’s visionary statement echoes across Colgate, where a whopping 1.3 percent of students participated in this year’s SGA elections, down from 1.4 percent last year and likely due to the retirement of last year’s senior Student Government members. Elected officials of Student Government at Colgate proudly tugged at the Dean’s sleeve like abandoned children exactly one time last semester, marking the end of any feeling on their part to take any action in regards to social justice, campus culture, or doing their jobs. Rag reporters caught an SGA representative departing from yet another session of idly discussing campus issues without taking any action to fix them for an exclusive interview.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty cool opportunity for the resumé,” said the Student Government representative, who has invoked their constitutional right to not be named in this paper under federal libel laws. “I’m planning on doing an internship in D.C. this summer, and once they see how much experience I have doing absolutely nothing as everything goes to shit around me, there’s no way I’m not gonna get the job.”

Students Found Urinating in Water Bottles

HAMILTON, NY — “Where did I go so wrong? How did I piss God off so badly that he’s putting me in this position of responsibility?” Junior CL Klue Lesse continued to mutter after the Rag questioned him regarding a recent email he sent to his residents in 133 Broad. “How the fuck does one of the most prestigious universities in the world admit students that behave like this? It’s honestly just embarrassing.”

Lesse continued his rant and finally revealed to us what was bothering him so much. On top of clogging toilets because they dumped their dirty bong water in them, residents of 113 Broad have taken to peeing in empty bottles and leaving them in various locations in the dorm. “The cleaning staff is truly underappreciated when they have to report stuff like this to me,” Lesse spoke sadly, “and there’s even more that goes on beyond the pee-bottles.”

The first-floor wake and bakers (having once again stayed home from class to smoke) thought they had been hearing weird noises, but it turns out one suite of 4 girls literally just had 5 puppies. They just kept real live dogs in their rooms. Is that even legal? Should we have called the humane society or something? The puppies were unregistered but discovered after each one had its own instagram created for it. “Super, super cute, don’t get me wrong” Lesse defended himself, “but I have to do my job you know? Plus, tiny dogs like that can’t just live between a dorm room and brief potty breaks in the snow. It’s just not right”

All in all, I think it’s fair to conclude that CLs deal with some wack shit and that the Colgate student body is not nearly intelligent as the school likes us to think. Being booksmart isn’t an excuse to pee in water bottles, steal peoples’ laundry, or toss a chair through a window.

Interview: Campus Security

HAMILTON, NY – Calamity struck Colgate when winter decided to exist. 13 founders with 13 dollars each decided that the best location for a school three hours from the Canadian border was on top of a hill. Rumor has it that the oldest hazing ritual was simply going down from West to Taylor Lake without slipping on the perilous ice and experiencing 13 fractures on the way. Such an activity is a favorite for the Campus Safety officers as they watch students tumble when they enter and exit Frank Dining Hall. 

“The actual act of falling is a spiritual experience if you ask me. The moment I dislocated my shoulder my mind transferred to the life I could have had at a warmer school like UCLA,” said local Colgate student Bryan Orkin. Unfortunately, any further explanation by Bryan was cut short by the sound of the incoming ambulance. 

“You know, aside from awkward car coitus, watching people fall from the warm interior of my van is probably my favorite activity at Colgate,” said Campus Safety officer S. Lippy, who at the time of interview had just recovered from three minutes of solid laughter as he removed the salt that was placed in front of Frank. 

When pressed for explanation on why this brings such great joy to him, S. Lippy simply laughed and pointed members of the press to the freshman boy who had done a split for the first time in his life. 

“It’s not just all fun and games here. There’s a practical reason for all this too. If I see someone fall I have reason to believe that they are intoxicated. You can’t be prejudiced if you have a seven second loop of the perpetrator on Snap.” explained Campus Safety officer T. Ryhardt, as he was keeping a keen eye on the incarcerated sophomore girl in the backseat. Sophomore girl Kierstan Stone was still in bewilderment of the whole situation and promptly asked the officer, “Why am I being taken in a squad car? I can walk fine” to the answer “So I can charge you a transportation fee for wasting Campus Safety’s time as you take time away from our more dire duties.”

Love Letter

feb back cover 19

Ben Shapiro Ghosts College Republicans Club

HAMILTON, NY — A brief, yet passionate relationship came to an end last month, although its death-rattle still echoes throughout the campus. “I thought for sure it’d work out!” bemoaned Chad J. Bildungs when we caught him outside his Broad Street residence Wednesday morning. “Sometimes, even one night together is too much to ask,” he added, definitely not sniffling. A glimmer of a tear may have been seen in Mr. Bildungs’ eye before he revved the engine of his Hummer and drove off the front lawn of his residence, but for the sake of the integrity of the press, we at the Monthly Rag present this as mere speculation. No one else at Mr. Bildungs’ residence was available for additional comment, although several seemed similarly distraught. The underlying cause of Mr. Bildungs’ histrionics was not, in fact, a Tinder match gone wrong, but something more nefarious – a seemingly failed attempt of the College Republicans to bring political figure Ben Shapiro to campus. While the College Republicans’ intentions with Mr. Shapiro were presented to the SGA as nothing but honorable, an anonymous tip that the group had more planned for Mr. Shapiro led the Rag to investigate this matter more deeply.

Rumors that “speechifying” and “question and answer sessions” were merely euphemisms for something more salacious were only the tip of this iceberg. (As a side-note, iceberg lettuce is now the only type of green, leafy vegetable sanctioned by the Rag staff due to the recent romaine fiasco, and we all know it’s only a matter of time until kale gets recalled too, that leafy fucker.) However, despite the amorous advances of the College Republicans towards their Messiah, it appears that, like a one-night stand gone wrong, Mr. Shapiro has ghosted his ardent followers.

“It started off slowly at first,” the same tipster whispered into the phone line, a call that one of us here at the Rag was unlucky enough to receive at 1:37 am on a Wednesday morning, which would have been an ideal time to be getting drunk instead of listening to this hot mess. (Not to be confused with the Cobra Starship song of the same name – this was considerably worse.) “First, he stopped responding to our ‘wyd?? ; p’ messages. Then, he let our Snapchat streak die. What kind of a monster does that?” the whisperer furiously continued, “I am sharing this so you can spread the news to never trust a Republican. They are nothing but bad news and heartbreak.” At this point, the call dissolved into muffled sobs, and the line was cut off, presumably by one of the other people at his residence.

And thus ends this tragedy, which can be best summed up in the words of mediocre sonnet-writer William Shakespeare: For never was a story of more woe, than this of the College Republicans and their Mr. Shapiro.

The Monthly Rag ardently refutes any claim that we tracked the phone used by the anonymous tipster in order to get a statement for the start of this article. If these people are indeed one in the same, that is just sheer coincidence. Shame on you.