Columnist’s Note: This is the first in a series of occasional columns presenting the author’s arbitrary thoughts, thought-provoking questions and wild suggestions.

The Buck$ Stop Here Department:

Budget cuts to higher education? Hah! That should be no deterrent to NIU in coming up with adequate university funding. We have plenty of resources for use in offsetting the skyrocketing costs of running a big school.

NIU is dotted with some goofy modern sculptures that, collectively, are probably worth a good deal of money. If we were to sell these monstrosities, we might be operating in the black again (at least for a few weeks).

Now, all you connoisseurs of the arts, don’t jump on my back yet. I do realize the “cultural value” of the Calder piece outside Lowden Hall, but hey! There are a lot of students who got closed out of SOCI 170 this year while those blasted sculptures sat there, fat and happy. Let’s be diplomatic about this.

Besides, the fences and barricades on Carroll Avenue seem to have become our own kind of modern sculpture. Who says fine art need be expensive?

We should sell any bricks that fall off the student center tower as novelty bookends or doorstops. (There’s a market for everything in DeKalb).

How about a celebrity roast? Selling $50-a-plate tickets to a Clyde Wingfield roast in the student center would surely bring NIU a ton of money…and possibly could match the $85 grand Wingfield is making off the university in Washington D.C. this year.

I mentioned this idea to some friends, and they said that if Clyde Wingfield is roasted, they’d supply the steak sauce—another NIU moneysaver.

Last and probably least of my fundraising ideas is a “Taste of NIU” festival, like the annual events held in Chicago and Rockford.

Sure, DeKalb has its Cornfest, but we could have Duckfest. There are plenty of meal potentials flocking around the lagoons right now.

Dead Woodchuck Department:

Dead woodchucks? Yes, they’re quickly becoming vogue at NIU. Last week someone even tossed one through a DeKalb apartment window. All in good, clean fun, I’m sure. A sad commentary on our respect for deceased animals—what is happening to our society?

Times They Are A-Changin‘ Department:

If you found that last item to be in bad taste, try this—NIU should ditch the huskie mascot in favor of the duck.

Be serious—how many huskies do you see frolicking around campus? And how many ducks do you see frolicking? I rest my case.

A friend of mine (code name: JelleBear) suggested that the Carroll Avenue art exhibit I mentioned earlier could also be converted instead to a petting zoo.

In our new zoo, we could feature such area zoological specimens as squirrels, geese, the NIU mascot duck, dead woodchucks …

Another shocker. Paper doll cut-outs representing both sexes of various ethnic and cultural groups have stood in the King Memorial Commons for the past few weeks now. But did anybody notice the figure standing for white females has disappeared?

Would this be termed as racist, sexist, or anything else-ist?

Civil (Engineering) War Department:

The recently-released Kawasaki Plan, which details campus renovations to be made in the future, reveals that upcoming construction will be aimed at linking the east and west sides of campus.

Has anyone asked the east side of campus how it feels about this? Let’s face it, east campus has the nicer lagoon, statelier buildings and more distinguished atmosphere. West campus is ugly, and I wouldn’t want to be joined with it in any way.

In fact, I vote that the east side secedes from the west and becomes Eastern Northern Illinois University.