Partly Cloudy, 64°
With a marked increase in crime rates on campus over the past academic year, Brown University found its street cred back on the rise. “We made a conscious effort to change our priorities,” said President Ruth Simmons. “In this never-ending search for smarts, we neglected our street smarts.”
Brown has a long history of misdemeanors, dating all the way back to the University’s namesake, Nicholas “Twenty-to-Life” Brown, Jr. However, Brown has recently gotten a bad rap for “going clean” and giving up its life of crime. “It was really embarrassing,” admitted Steve Panisson ’15. “There’s a shooting at Yale pretty much every day. The best we had was the John Street masturbator. How can we compete with that?”
Thankfully, Brown has loaded its guns and pulled on its ski mask once again, as muggings and robberies have increased exponentially in 2012. “It was a real team effort to get our reputation back where it needed to be,” said local miscreant John Hannigan as he robbed a Brown student of his laptop. “Brown is just as dangerous as any other campus in America and we needed all hands on deck to prove that point,” added Hannigan, all the while insisting that he be able to see his victim’s hands.
“It’s been a long time coming,” noted President Simmons. “I can rest easy knowing that during my tenure as president, I was able to save Brown’s street cred and put us on the path to turning College Hill into College Incline-as-Steep-as-Our-Ever-Steep-Crime-Rate.”
Brown’s plan seems to be working because other schools are noticing the changes. Police intelligence indicates that Cornell and Dartmouth students were set to rumble those from Harvard until Brown showed up. “When I saw Brown was there, I was like, shit man, we gotta leave,” recounted Dartmouth student Joe Biaggi ’13. “I don’t want to fuck with a bunch of vaguely described suspects of medium height wearing dark jeans and a t-shirt. No way, son.”
Prospective students have begun to notice the changes as well. “It’s pretty here and all, but I really wasn’t feeling the vibe on campus that I was hoping for while taking my admissions tour,” said prospective student Sarah Tam. “But then the whole tour group got mugged as we were crossing Waterman Street, and I knew this was the place for me.”
The only bump in the road in what has been an outstandingly impressive initiative is Brown’s Department of Public Safety, which still insists on reducing crime rates on campus. “I don’t know how they missed the memo,” said Jill Santi ’12. “DPS undermining this operation has been more than frustrating,” grumbled President Simmons. “They can still break up parties on weekends. They can still ride their tricycles. All I asked was for a little less vigilance on the streets. But I guess the law-man makes his own rules.”
Whether Brown’s meteoric rise in the ranks of criminal colleges will continue is a question that only time can answer. One thing is for sure, however: if all goes according to plan, that time won’t be jail time.
