A Modest Proposal For Preventing Dartmouth College Students’ Adverse Mental Health From Impeding Academic Pursuits

It is distressing to those walking through this town, or traveling through the countryside, to see so many Dartmouth undergraduates with taut brows, rocking themselves back and forth in dark alleyways. These students, rather than being able to work, are forced to spend their time fighting their own assailant brains. Their presentations, theses, and exams languish for want of a champion; so much knowledge goes discarded and undiscovered.

The great advantage in the scheme I seek to implement is twofold: one, that students are freed to spend their energies in the absence of dread; and two, that it will prevent those spontaneous episodes of panic which today present such a scourge among our student body.

The most advantageous solution for general anxieties, I have learned from my dearest psychotherapist associates, is a sudden purge of such feelings through a panic attack. It dispels all harmful vapors from the body and leaves behind a clean system, allowing one to once again focus on their work.

Such attacks, however, only occur naturally in about 30% of the student body. Therefore, no universal path to panic currently exists on Dartmouth’s campus.

The most advantageous solution for allergic reactions, as I have learned from my pre-med friends, is an Epi-Pen injected into one’s thigh. Such an action produces a sudden release of adrenaline, allowing the body to instantly free itself from whatever malady plagues it.

I shall now humbly submit my plans to public consideration, which I should hope not to be too objectionable in the current circumstances.

Epi-pens, bought in bulk from America’s leading manufacturers, will be distributed to the student body each day at the library. At 9AM each morning, students will henceforth be granted ten minutes to inject themselves with said epi-pens, and have brief, controlled episodes of panic in their rooms. Sirens will sound and all dorm rooms will be locked to ensure complete safety during this time, and it will come to be known as the Loony Lock-In.

Any students refusing to comply with these measures will have convicted stabbers from the nearby Woodstock Correctional Facility locked in their rooms with them. This will not only ensure full implementation of the epi-pen policy, but provide employment for our society’s least employed population.

This plan, I admit, incurs great cost to the College due to the high market price of Epi-Pens, at nearly $600 per unit. By transferring UWill and the Student Wellness Center’s annual budget into the purchase of said Epi-Pens, the vast majority of this expense would disappear. The remainder will be collected by selling Dartmouth’s therapy dogs into racing circuits and chopping down all trees on the Grant for lumber.

I cannot imagine any objection to such a plan, except that we ought to provide more traditional counseling measures such as talking therapy, medications, or lifestyle interventions. To any such objectors, I ask this: how is that going? Yeah? That’s what I thought.

Humbly signed,

Jonathan Sluggish

— SS ’26