EVANSTON—Northwestern University prides itself on its nationally acclaimed theater program. Widely recognized by students across the country, Northwestern theater prepares young artists to cope with rejection, the typical outcome of real-life performance auditions. One hopeful freshman, Jeff Sachs, is actually convinced that I was aware of and had time to attend The Taming of the Shrew, a student-organized show he worked on.

Sachs, a dazed theater major, clearly faltered in logic with that thought, failing to recognize that my attendance at his show would have been statistically impossible. This is a common mistake, it would appear.

First, consider the amount of time a college student works. Multiply that value by eight to determine the time a Northwestern student spends working. By this logic, the average NU student works 169 hours per week, or one hour more hour than the total amount of hours in one week. Next, multiply the number of performances in one quarter by two hours, the average length of a production. Given the amount of performances nightly, this time value overflows most standard calculators.

Some have sacrificed their grades in an attempt to attend all the performances. In addition, it has caused cast members from different shows to engage in intense competition. They lure audience members by whatever means necessary, even resorting to violent threats. One anonymous audience member voiced his concern: “I literally saw ten shows in one night because I have a lot of friends who are theater majors. I thought I was being a good guy, supporting the performers and everything, but apparently I wasn’t. When I woke up the next morning, someone had spray painted ‘the cast of Eclipsed knows you weren’t there’ and ‘the theatre community will make you pay, jackass’ on my door. I really am scared for my life now.”

Jeff Sachs, you silly young artist, are you serious? If there were a million hours in a week, chances are good that I still would have been unable to attend The Taming of the Shrew. Sachs is simply “dream[ing] the impossible dream” like Don Quixote did in Man of La Mancha—for the few of you that had the chance to see the NU show.

EVANSTON—Frigid economic conditions have shrunk the size of Northwestern’s endowment, according to new reports from President Bienen’s office. University spokesman Steven Westerstein released a statement yesterday downplaying the so-called “shrinkage” effect on NU’s performance.

“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.”