In a true Christmas miracle, the Stanford Gospel has been delivered unto us, by the Stanford Flipside:
In the beginning John Arrillaga created the institution and the campus. Now The Farm was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the fountains, and the Spirit of Jane Stanford was hovering over the waters.
And Hennessy said, “Let there be classes,” and there were classes. Hennessy saw that the classes were good, and he separated the techies from the fuzzies. Hennessy called the techies “employed,” and the fuzzies he called “broke.” And there was Sahami, and there was Wolff— on the first day of classes.
And Hennessy said, “Let there be a vault between the majors to separate major from major.” So Hennessey made the vault and separated the major under the vault from the major above it.
And it was so. Hennessy called the vault “The Quad.” And there was Sahami, and there was Wolff—on the second day of classes.
And Hennessy said, “Let the techies be gathered to one place, and let housing appear.” And it was so. Hennessy called the fuzzie ground “FloMo”, and the gathered techies he called “FroSoco.” And Hennessy saw that it was good.
Then Hennessy said, “Let the techies produce start-ups: code-bearing websites and apps in Silicon Valley that bear money with success in it, according to their various innovations.” And it was so. The start-ups produced alumni donations: money bearing leverage according to their amount and buildings bearing names according to their donors. And Hennessy saw that it was good. And there was Sahami, and there was Wolff— on the third day of classes.
And Hennessy said, “Let there be midterms in the second week to separate the smart from the lazy, and let them serve as signs to mark difficult hours, and days and years, and let them be warnings of the nature of the university to give us a good academic reputation.” And it was so. Hennessy made two great exams—the greater final to govern the grades and the lesser midterm to govern the stress levels. He also made the problem sets. Hennessy assigned them weekly to give students more to do, to govern the day and the night, and to separate sleep from sanity. And Hennessy saw that it was good. And there was Sahami, and there was Wolff— on the fourth day of classes.
And Hennessy said, “Let the campus teem with over-ambitious students, and let tourists tour around campus and get in the way of bikers.” So Hennessy created the Asian tourist and every living thing on campus moves about in them, especially in the Circle of Death, and every student had their photo taken by a stranger. And Hennessy saw that it was good. Hennessy thanked them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the tour groups, and let the applications increase in multitude.” And there was Sahami, and there was Wolff— on the fifth day of classes.
And Hennessy said, “Let the football team produce semi-reliable athletes: the quarterbacks, the kickers that move along the field, and the coaches, each specialized to train.” And it was so. Hennessy made the athletes according to their sports, the coaches according to their sports, and all the athletic department that hangs around the gym. And Hennessy saw that it was good.
Then Hennessy said, “Let us make freshmen in our image, in our likeness, so that they may struggle over the problem sets and the exams, over the athletics and all the extracurriculars, and over all the things to do on campus.”
So Hennessy created freshmen in his own image, in the image of Hennessy he created them; male and female he created them.
Shaw admitted them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in productivity; fill our coffers and represent us. Rule over the laymen in the Ivy League and the other PAC-12 schools in the western U.S. and over every living creature that is educated at other institutions, especially UC Berkeley.”
Then Hennessy said, “I give you every essay on the face of the whole earth and every lab that has complicated concepts in it. They will be yours for stressing.
And to all the athletes of the campus and all the nerds in the lectures and all the professors that move around their offices—everything that has the breath of Stanford in it—I give every resource.
” And it was so.
Hennessy saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
And there was Sahami, and there was Wolff— on the sixth day of classes.
Thus the campus and the students were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day of classes, Hennessey had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then Hennessy took the seventh day and made it stressful for everyone else, because, let’s be real, the students hadn’t done shit all week.
