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A recent discovery by a Brown professor has revealed one of the Rhode Island School of Design’s best-kept secrets: Every student at RISD is actually the same person.
Professor of American Studies Kurt Blannerman was doing research on the history of arts education in America when he stumbled upon a peculiar document in the RISD archives. “I had read the school’s constitution before, but I never thought to turn the page over and look at what was on the back,” said Blannerman, laughing at his stupidity. “It turns out there’s another section of the constitution that says that RISD can only enroll one student at a time, yet it must keep up the appearance of enrolling a whole school’s worth of students.”
The whole ruse rests upon the one enrolled student’s artistic ability and mastery of the art of disguise. “Because RISD has a reputation of having artsy-looking students, the costumes can be wild and people will still believe you,” commented Bethany Tisdale ’12. “As long as you have a Moleskine notebook, a fancy pen and some kind of weird looking hair, people will believe you’re from RISD.”
“I had never really noticed the lack of students in my classes until the story broke,” said Emily Guo ’15, Brown-RISD dual degree student. “I thought that that’s just how it worked down the Hill: the professor, me and one other student. I dunno. It’s weird there, so it made sense at the time.”
“Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen more than one of my RISD friends in the same place at the same time,” said Maddie Hamilton ’13. “They say they have to go back down the Hill and then by the time they would have made it back to their dorm, another RISD student pops up in their place. It’s like Clark Kent and Superman.”
Other students have commented on the surprising similarities between their friends from RISD. “I feel so dumb,” laughed Jason Weinert ’12. “It’s so obvious now that all my friends from RISD have to be the same person. Why would Alex and Sophia both wear beanies and trendy scarves? That’s not a coincidence. Plus, how could all RISD students listen to all the same obscure bands? They wouldn’t be obscure anymore! It’s ludicrous when you think about it.”
Now that the cat is out of the bag, it looks like RISD is going to have to enroll more students. However, this prospect doesn’t worry RISD president John Maeda. “It’s about bringing these kinds of traditions into the modern world,” commented Maeda. “With cloning technology on the rise, who knows what kind of diverse students we can create – erm – accept?”
