By: Noah Goldman

NORTHFIELD, MN – It seemed like just another Monday morning for Carleton student Anita Morales. She woke up, brushed her teeth, counted her hours of sleep, and started walking to breakfast at Burton.

Unbeknownst to Anita, her journey was doomed from the start.

“I noticed that the chain-link fence around the construction site seemed to be a bigger problem than usual,” she told The Salt over the phone. “And then I realized that was because it was impossible to escape.”

Anita is one of 125 students trapped by what Carls have nicknamed the “obstruction site.” Last Thursday, the obstruction site appeared without warning around several residential buildings. Because the site is a closed loop, much like a doughnut, it divides Carleton into an interior and an exterior. Anita and the other 124 students happened to be on the interior when the construction began. Their rescue remains uncertain.

 

From outside the fence, this reporter could still see some students walking in circles in search of an escape.

“This construction is just an outgrowth of our plan to move admissions into Sayles,” says Carleton president Steven Poskanzer. “We’re making a lot of tuition money, and we’re running out of places to put the cash. So we’re remodelling Scoville, moving admissions to Sayles and putting a giant letter C in front of it, transporting the GSC to a house in Burnsville, and moving the music department into Lyman Lakes. And we’re also building a new building with an inescapable courtyard. Here at Carleton, we invest in the future.”

When asked why the college keeps its assets in cash, Poskanzer declined to comment, though anonymous sources have reported that members of the Carleton administration enjoy skinny-dipping in large piles of money.

Carleton and Bon Appetit have planned for crates of dry chicken and homework to be airdropped into the center of the closed loop, to protect the students from physical and intellectual starvation.