In a move that the Amherst Wire has described as “bold” and “innovative,” the Joint Admissions School Board of the Five College Consortium announced last Friday that an actual, literal glass bubble—the size of the entire districts of Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin County—will be erected over the entirety of the Pioneer Valley.
The news was announced last Friday by Amherst College president Carolyn Martin at the luncheon for the 150th birthday of Amherst’s founder, Paisley Comstock Wilmington III.
“I remember the vision first came to me while watching ‘The Simpsons Movie,’” said UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, one of the long-time architects of the plan. “And there’s this part where President Schwarzenegger approves of this initiative to cover the whole city of Springfield in a giant glass dome. And I thought to myself, ‘Wow! What a great idea!’”
Subbaswamy gave a little chuckle to himself, and continued, “Ever since the first big Blarney blowout, I’ve been up to my neck in therapy bills. I figure this project, which a committee of the very brightest minds in higher education have decided to call the ‘Bubble Buddy Project’ will be able to do most of the legwork for us.”
Chancellor Subbaswamy stressed that the Bubble Buddy Project will deviate from the dome featured in “The Simpsons Movie” in a number of ways.
“At UMass,” Subbaswamy continued, “we value the safety and security of students’ tuition checks above all else. For this reason, the bubble will not be made of glass. We’re not barbarians. It will be made of a nice squishy silicone designed by one of our top alumni!”
Chancellor Subbaswamy gestured toward Corey Ingerhauser-Smith, a UMass 2011 grad, as well as CEO and founder of Thinkfluence, a company that Ingerhauser-Smith built from a tiny start-up in Silicon Valley. Thinkfluence has played a key role in the development of the Bubble Buddy Project.
“At Thinkfluence, we are always thinking of new ways to reshape the way we are living,” Ingerhauser-Smith said. “We use only the most perceptive psychological methods to stimulate the growth of communicative fields.”
When asked what stimulating the growth of communicative fields has to do with putting a giant, transparent, silicone dome over several hundred square miles of public land without the consent of the populace, Ingerhauser-Smith replied, “The point that I am trying to illustrate is that of course no one wants all-out conflict, but historically, historical changes have come out of the type of thinkfluencing that we are doing here.”
But not all in attendance were as enthusiastic about the Bubble Buddy Project.
“I mean…are you kidding me?” said Perrilyn Boudreau, a single mother of a UMass sophomore and resident of Hadley. “Who drafted this proposal? Why was no else in the community asked about it? Who’s paying for it? Where does the money come from?”
Ingerhauser-Smith acknowledged the skepticism. “We understand why many members of the underwealthed communities of the Valley may be hesitant to embrace the Bubble Buddy Project due to their lack of education, but the fundamental question is, will I be as effective as a thinkfluencer like Mark [Zuckerberg], Jeff [Bezos] and Elon [Musk] are? Well I interned for all of them, and the answer is that I will be even more so! But until I am, it’s going to be hard to verify that I think I’ll be more effective.”
“And everyone was so uptight about that all that investment in the new building for the Business School!” chimed in Deputy Chancellor Steve Goodwin. “But this kid, Corey, came straight out of Isenberg. He puts the ‘pioneer’ in Pioneer Valley. These Silicon kids are like demigods, I tell ya! I say we slash the budget of the rest of our programs so that we can set up Bubble Buddies on campuses across the country!”
“UMass is committed to the democratic principles of equality. We understand that a dollar tuition hike may cause strife for some students in the Five College Consortium,” said Andrew Mangels, UMass vice chancellor for administration and finance.
“Therefore, out of fairness, every student will pay the same $8,000 per semester fee!”
In response to this news, The Black Sheep Online has announced its retirement as a satirical website, citing that “What’s there to make fun of? We might as well become a legitimate news outlet at this point.”
Perchik Dudofsky is surprised you’ve even made it this far into the article, and thus has not provided any contact information. Move along, yeah?
