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

Lately, Trinity’s campus has been seemingly consumed by endless fences, caution tape, and construction workers who have tirelessly worked to improve and maintain our campus. College campuses as old as ours need constant maintenance and renewal to keep up with our peers across the country, and that involves inconvenient and long detours that can make you late for class if you’re unprepared or forgetful. These detours are a source of many student complaints, making it much longer to walk to class than it needs to be. However, this perspective is all wrong. Instead of viewing these detours as daily inconveniences, we should view them as daily convenient excuses to get our steps in.

Consider the construction next to Dicke Hall that’s going to give us a shiny, brand-new Welcome Center that will take over the function of welcoming Trinity’s guests from the drab, ugly, old Northrup Hall built in the ancient days of 2004 and probably didn’t cost, like, that much. The construction to build this gorgeous and essential Welcome Center currently cuts students off from walking directly into Dicke Hall. It forces them to take a detour around or through Halsell, adding about 45 seconds to a minute an average student’s commute to their class. This extra minute or so adds valuable steps to our daily lives.

According to the Gundersen Health System, a minute of walking is about 80 steps for a person walking moderately fast, or three mph. That means it’s about 80 steps there and back from class daily, generously built into your day for free by Trinity University. These can easily add up to hundreds of extra calories burned every week. Not only has Trinity provided its students with its state-of-the-art Bell Center, but it has even thought to give those who don’t have time to hit the gym a chance to exercise at only a marginal 5% tuition raise.

Unfortunately, some students don’t see the genius behind the administration’s scheming. These dolts who never should’ve gotten into Trinity in the first place have numerous objections. Some say the construction noise is irritating and the dust is bad for students’ health. Yet there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this as well. Statistically, most people will live in a loud and dirty city, and the university is providing exposure therapy. Others say that the construction makes it harder for people with disabilities to get around campus. These people have failed to consider that Trinity has never cared about its disabled students, so why would it start caring now?

So the next time you find yourself facing a long and confusing detour for the most meaningless construction project ever contrived by man, think about what it’s doing for you. Is it a waste of your time, money, and patience? Or is it a masterful gambit to make Trinity the country’s healthiest, strongest student body? Next time, take some time to thank the school administration for making you sweat off that extra cookie in the intense San Antonio summer heat.