I am sure that you were all quite impressed to hear that, last year, our endowment grew by a whopping 46 percent to reach 2.5 billion dollars. Apparently the College invested 12 percent of the endowment in "venture funds," which returned a 500 percent profit.
I am still not entirely sure what you can buy these days that you can then turn around and sell at that kind of profit. Heroin, maybe. I bet that explains all those windowless vans I've seen stopping in front of the president's house to make "deliveries." Granted, the vans tend to say "Hanover Inn Catering," but I stand by my story.
Or maybe somebody took a couple hundred million of the endowment money to Vegas and invested it in roulette. Lucky they quit while they were ahead.
However the College got a hold of all that money (I hear there's a lot of profit to be made on land deals in Arkansas), we now have the enviable task of figuring out what to spend it on. To that end, I have a number of suggestions as to what to do with all the drug money (or whatever) that we've made during the last year:
First, it's high time the College up and bought the town of Hanover. Whenever Dartmouth tries to get a hold of, say, a frat house or somebody's high school to build some new buildings on top of, all those messy property laws tend to get in the way. If the state were to grant the Upper Valley to the college as a medieval fiefdom, life would be much easier.
Secondly, some of the money could be used to buy proper vehicles for all of the S&S officers. You may have noticed that many of the hard-working security officers who patrol our campus have to walk or ride a little bicycle! Green minivans for all, I say.
Also, on the subject of transportation, we really need a chairlift over the Green. Who's got the time to walk all the way from the Hop to Moore? A nice new high-speed detached quad running back and forth from that little glass atrium area in the front of the Hop (which kind of looks like a lift house anyway) to up by Sudikoff would be perfect.
Another project that apparently is a little short on money is the new Berry library. Some extra cash would go a long way toward adding some of those nice little cosmetic features that Berry is still lacking, like drywall and paint. Also, money is definitely needed in order to relocate the Berry printout window to somewhere less convenient to students. The current spot only requires you to walk through one library and down about five flights of stairs. Additional funds could be used to build an underground labyrinth that students would have to solve before they arrived at the printout window.
We could certainly stand to spend some money to provide more student parking. Just to show its good sense of humor, the College could build some parking lots located at similarly ludicrous distances from campus as A-lot. B-lot could be in Rutland, and C-lot could be just outside of Manchester.
Finally, it is high time that we bite the bullet and invest the substantial funds necessary to buy Food Court a second ice-cream topping heater, such that hot fudge and caramel can be served on the same day. I realize that $2.5 billion only goes so far, but even so I treasure my little dreams of multiple toppings, unrealizable though they may be.
Take heart, Dartmouthians! Many of our dreams for improving our beloved college may soon become reality, now that the endowment is growing by leaps and bounds. Keep those windowless vans rolling by the president's house, I say.
