“We are pleased and happy to report that the cold weather is back,” said senior Mike Daly, president of the Coalition. “You guys don’t understand how freaked out we were last week.”

Daly is referring to the flash of warmth Evanston experienced last week, when high temperatures reached mid-40s.

“Seriously, we were freaking out about global warming. I mean, it’s January. It’s supposed to be icy cold, not moderately chilly. For a while we thought we were too drunk to realize it was cold, but as it turns out, that had nothing to do with how warm last week was.”

Other members of the club shared similar sentiments of relief.

“We didn’t even need our thick jackets and mufflers. I saw a guy walking down Sheridan in a hoodie. A hoodie!” reported junior Wendy Frost, a member of the Coalition against Climate Change. “I’m just really glad to see all the people around with winter gear on again, especially those big, goofy hats.”

“I almost died last week,” said the snowman residing behind the Norris student center, an active member of the Coalition. “It was just too warm.”

However, not everyone on campus is happy that the frosty weather is back. Freshmen April Lim was overheard muttering, “I could have gone to Berkeley,” during a particularly strong wind gust.

The biggest loser in this entire situation seems to be freshmen theater major George Lebow, who mistakenly thought winter was over and sold all of his warm clothing in exchange for beer money. While Lebow will probably suffer the consequences of hypothermia, it is likely that he will not feel anything at all.

“It’s just not fair,” whined a member of the group who spoke to The Flipside on condition of anonymity. “When I saw the words ‘Spring Quarter,’ I assumed that it would finally be warm again as soon as I returned from Spring Break. Instead, I discover that April isn’t all that different from February. Who needs four seasons anyway? I’ve spent most of my life with just one, and that’s fine with me.”

If successful in their suit, the group, who are unofficially calling themselves the Season Reform Movement, will demand that the names of the Northwestern academic terms be changed to Winter Quarter, More Winter Quarter, Still Winter Quarter, and No Air-conditioning Quarter.

The group will also request that the University look into possibilities for artificially heating the entire Evanston Campus to at minimum of 65° F from November through April. The group says that swift action is needed by administrators if they hope to impress this year’s round of admitted prospective students.

The group doesn’t understand what will happen at the end of the quarter. “When reading week comes along,” noted the group’s spokesman, “it’s going to be almost ninety degrees. That’s not spring. That’s summer. This school really needs to get its seasons right.”

“We here at Northwestern University have always felt that it’s not about the size of the endowment, but how you use it that really matters. Besides, it’s not like our endowment is that small. At least we’re still bigger than Wash U.”

Northwestern student reactions were very mixed about the news of the endowment’s shriveling. “Oh, that concerns me a lot. The main reason I decided to go here was the size of the endowment,” said Weinberg junior Melissa Bergson. “I don’t know if my experience will be quite the same anymore.”

“I think a lot of universities are concerned too much with endowment size,” said SESP freshman Julie Howitzers. “They don’t realize that students don’t really care that much. NU has a lot of other great benefits besides its endowment. It just has a strong personality, which is important to me.”

In his final months at Northwestern, President Bienen wants to extend the life of Northwestern pride far beyond his tenure. “The goal is to keep it going in the long run. We’ve been around since 1851, so there will always be some bumps in the road. We just need to stay focused to extend our prosperity.

The dwindling size of NU’s endowment presents a problem to school administrators. “Once the stock market warms back up,” explains Westerstein, “we’ll be back to normal size. Hopefully, with our endowment re-erected, performance will return to normal.”