PALO ALTO (RPT) - As major disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic - including decreased enrollments, challenges to university infrastructure and shrinking endowments - shake universities across the country, some universities have sought new leadership. This week, a prestigious US University appointed Florida Man as the new University President. His academic experience as Reviewer 3, as well as a proven record of creative and semi-legal problem solving made him stand out from the competition. “He’s good at improvising in difficult times,” a University representative told RPT, “this ain’t his first dumpster fire.”
Florida Man has already made several changes in the short week that he has been President. His first action was to create a moat surrounding the University and fill it with alligators. He told RPT reporters, “Alligators are a cheap way to get rid of mice and they real good for security. Plus, they good eatin’ if students get hungry or them alligators get outta control and we gotta hunt some.” Florida Man has also officially rewritten the mission of the agricultural school so that it’s primary objective is “figuring out how to make Capri Suns grow on trees.” His most popular innovation so far is moving the University to what has been called the ‘Disneyland Model’ for the Fall semester. A series of canals are being built throughout the university which will allow students to sit in little floating carts and drift through campus while their professors lecture at them from the banks to maintain social distance. “Now all them students can come back in September,” Florida Man told RPT, “and I’m out diggin’ tomorrow to connect the moat with the canal system so they can hunt alligator for their all lunches while they drift through class.”
Other university presidents are in disbelief, “You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no way Florida Man is in that position,” said a President of a nearby university who also applied for the job, but withdrew his application after a series of appliance fires in his home caused him to reconsider. He continued, “Apparently the cornerstone of his budgetary plan is to save money on heating the campus by burning tires in the administration building.” But despite criticisms, Florida Man’s new strategies are proving successful. The University has experienced increases in enrollments, especially from the state of Florida, and is also gaining investment from the private sector, including through new relationships with previously untapped university-business partnerships such as junkyards and alligator farms. “Whatever’s the problem, I got a solution,” Flordia Man told RPT in an exclusive interview, “what’s happenin’ at this here University ain’t nuthin’ compared to what I been through.” Florida Man declined to comment about the lawsuit filed yesterday by Capri Sun over fears of lost revenue if the University’s new agricultural initiatives are successful.
