This piece is entirely satirical. Read the rest of our April Fool’s edition, the Trinibonian, here. 

Trinity recently welcomed its newest president, Banessa “The Beast” Beastly, with an elaborate inauguration celebration that consisted of a concert, dinners, and the inaugural Trinity drone show. SGA senators report that the week-long festivities cost a total of $300,000 to put on and brought in an impressive 12 guests, including 11 donors and one student.

“I was walking to the library when all of a sudden I was swept into Laurie. An old man had walked up to me and asked if I’d heard of Dicks Hall and then said that he was Richard Dicks. I was stuck there for 5 hours,” said the student, who preferred to remain anonymous.

Due to this astoundingly successful event, the Trinity Board of Trustees began a new initiative to bring more art to campus. A student panel was formed for the topic that decided that the most effective strategy was to push more funding from on-campus sports to the arts. However, upon further talks with TUPD, the university took a different strategy to fund the project. Saul Gapa, TUPD chief, explained the new funding plans.

“Basically all we do is stand around during sporting events and hand out popcorn sometimes,” Gapa said. “So, defunding sports is close to defunding TUPD, and, of course, institutions will never defund us because we enact their will through threats of violence.”

The university instead decided that it would pull funding from campus renovations, and specifically from the projects meant to remove black mold and raccoons from dorm rooms. This funding will be diverted to a new project aimed to create a personal drone entourage for the president, which will serve both artistic and security purposes.

“Crime prevention is our number one goal, which is why we’re spending extra to purchase drones with 4K cameras. Using this panopticon method, we hope to prevent possible carburetor theft as well as internet scams,” Gapa said.

“Panopticon” is right, as this flock of drones consists of 68 state-of-the-art drones equipped with cameras that record every move of unsuspecting Trinitonians. Not only will this new project yield security benefits, but it will also add art to the everyday life of Trinity students.

On top of the cameras, the drones also include LED light systems that work together to light up images in the sky. This effect initially dazzled Trinity students at the inauguration ceremony over Murchison Tower. Unfortunately, due to complaints from commercial airline pilots fearful of the text, “Liberal Arts +,” branded into the sky, the drones now include an altitude cap of 40 feet.

This limits the visual possibilities for the light show, especially since the drones have an automatic altitude floor as they move about campus. This eight-foot minimum was added after a tragic collision between one of the drones and a rather tall basketball player on a scooter.

Still, even with all these restrictions, the university is still planning to strive for student interaction with this new technology. Just as Mabee Dining Hall recently added the RockBot system that allows students to queue music, Trinity plans to add a system in which students can design and display art for the drone show. While some student organizations have concerns about what students may choose to display, the Trinity Young Conservatigers, Trinity’s official champions of free speech, fought for no limitations on designs. The club even invited speaker Madeilyn Trump (no relation) to campus to speak on the issue on March 12 of this year. Thanks to this student advocacy, the university officially stated that they will not censor content submitted by students.

“As a liberal arts institution, we pride ourselves on student expression. Trinity is proud to announce that no student artwork submitted to the on-campus drone project will be censored,” said the university in a statement.

As for the president herself, Beastly said she is excited to implement this new project in her daily life at Trinity.

“I’ve felt so welcomed here at Trinity, this is just a cherry on top of this community that I am so excited to be a part of. I can tell that Trinity’s future is almost as bright as these looming drones,” Beastly said.

This initiative also plays a part in Trinity’s recent focus on outreach to possible future Tigers, because one sure way to catch the attention of high schoolers is with flying colorful lights which bombard them during their campus tour.

With all of these positive effects in mind, the program is set to be put in place this semester, ideally within the next two months. This is contingent on ITS Services’ installing framework in the drones, though, so 4-5 year delays are possible.

Even with the uncertainty regarding the implementation of this program, one student, in particular, is looking forward to buzzing into the future.
“Yeah sure it sounds really cool … can I please leave,” said the aforementioned anonymous student, Roy Lee.