The W.E.B. Du Bois Library is an iconic symbol of the University of Massachusetts.

Viewable from everywhere within a 20-mile radius, the DuBois library is our North Star — guiding students back home when they wake up on a random street in Amherst center after a long Saturday night. When I look at DuBois and how it debauches the Western Massachusetts horizon, I feel a sense of pride. The library is deeply representative of who we are as a student body, for we too are dense, falling apart at the seams and a hazard to the Commonwealth.

Everyone has experienced the notorious vortex-speed wind tunnels next to the library (affectionately called the “DuBreeze” or “DuBlast” depending on the weather), but few realize the true danger that lurks a few dozen stories in the air upon each of the library’s road-salt-encrusted facades: the falling bricks.

Rivaling only the coveted “BORG” in its notoriety, the falling library bricks are a central part of UMass Amherst lore.

A metal gate encloses the area within 10 feet of the base of DuBois. Heralded the falling brick “splash zone,” students have long speculated about the reasoning behind this gate. When interviewing the librarians of Du Bois about this statement, they responded with “my lawyer has advised me not to discuss this matter at any length.”

Exclusive investigative reports have revealed that the falling library bricks are not simply a result of the campus’s crumbling infrastructure, but rather, part of an administrative plot to cut down on the population of lame nerds on campus.

It’s been well established that UMass Amherst is currently facing an overpopulation problem. Obviously, administration has to release some ballast.

In a reverse-Watergate operation, Collegian personnel was able to retrieve tapes from the Whitmore offices where UMass administration met to discuss the issue. They took no expense at deliberating over the harsh ethical dilemma of who to relinquish.

Just kidding. It was an easy decision. This is ZooMass after all. We can’t have a bunch of try-hards just running around willy-nilly without repercussions.

“Any student who’s lame enough to spend enough time around the library for falling bricks to be a considerable risk probably deserves to go anyway,” explained the administrative Chief of Campus Population Control Cory Ruption.

Honors Statistics and Data Science major Stan Derdeviation was the first student to be struck by a falling brick this past semester. Derdeviation, who has a 4.0 GPA and no girlfriend, spends considerable studying time in the library’s basement floor learning center.

“This is probably the closest thing to getting ‘bricked up’ that he’ll ever get,” explained Mr. Ruption.

After Derdeviation was smited by the brick, he insisted, “I couldn’t help but be amazed by the sheer probability of it all. In the wider population of students who have been at risk of getting hit by a brick at DuBois — and assuming a normal distribution and alpha value of 0.01 —  my experience must be at least four sigmas out. The probability of being hit by a brick at Du Bois was almost infinitely small and yet a z-test statistics of proportions would yield a value that surely surpasses a critical value of 2.33.”

When confronted about his involvement in the accident, Mr. Ruption merely responded, “I am not a crook.”

Derdeviation, who at this point was being loaded into the back of an ambulance, began to discuss regression analysis with his fellow math major friends who stood by his side. While Derdeviation is recovering from his concussion, his friends, who also have 4.0 GPAs and no girlfriends, have deemed his improbable experience as evidence that he is the “statistically chosen one.”

The next day, the library sent down another gift from above upon Val Locity, a physics graduate student.

As Locity lay on the sidewalk, she marveled at the amount of Newtons acting upon the brick as it accelerated down from the 24th floor of the library and onto her head.

“Especially given the speed of the wind tunnel, there were exterior drag forces acting upon this unit from all angles. Despite this, it reached an incredible velocity if we calculate the acceleration of the brick in freefall in Earth’s gravity. An object in motion will continue to stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force, and in this case, the outside force was my face.”

Val Locity, now missing her front teeth, began to argue with the paramedics about developing a new SI unit specifically for measuring impact force from bricks before being given her laughing gas.

Nerds across campus have been reporting similar experiences. The library at the Lederle Graduate Research Center, which was already a safe haven for UMass dorks and dweebs far and wide, has become a brick-free refuge for those worried about those becoming a statistic.

Mechanical Engineering student Inna Nertia lamented at the sudden over-crowding at Lederle.

“This used to be the best-kept secret among STEM majors. The falling bricks must stop, and these linguistics and political science students need to go home. They keep taking my favorite wheel-around whiteboard and diagramming sentences .” Nertia stated.

Khan Cussion is just a brick’s throw away.