Look, just past Bauman, it’s Emerald City! No, Guilford students, you are not dreaming. Frank Family Science Center has entered the running to become the new Emerald City in the much — anticipated remake of the now classic 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.
“When we created the building,” says Guilford College Building director Lionel Richie, “We were certainly reaching somewhere over the rainbow. The fact that the tiles in the bathroom make no pretense of matching each other and the vaulted ceilings, painted maroon and blue, creep most people out was not a mistake. We went to the edge of Quaker design. We wanted to be noticed, to attract students.”
What they got was Frank Family Science Center, a 54,000-square-foot building planned “from the inside out” to “support Guilford College’s unique vision of science education,” according to its description on the web-page.
Now it has been one of five “unique” buildings located in colleges across the country that MGM might use for its upcoming film. Guilford now has to convince them that the building could suit their needs, which have likewise been described as “unique.”
It is not enough to offer the building, though. Guilford students are encouraged to “come together as a community” and help make the school more desirable. Therefore, the biology department has been working nonstop to locate all the brains and hearts that the producers might need. Jonathan Malino’s Philosophy 100 class has been promised extra credit if they can discover “courage.” Winged monkeys, of course, are known to live in the basement of King. The brunt of the work, however, falls to the Physical Plant, who would have to renovate the “plain” building.
“Yeah, well, the building does have spooky angles, and many “multi-purpose rooms” that can be used for the witch’s tower and the wizard’s throne room, but it’s just not green enough,” says Weeks. “And we would have to tear down Binford to plant a deadly poppy field.”
Tearing down Binford has been, all along, the most controversial part of the plan. As part of the plan, Guilford will not admit a first-year class, as they have done every year since the college’s founding. Many students have expressed concern.
“Yeah, I’m thinking ‘what about community;’ and ‘we should have a forum,” stated a sophomore student who preferred to be named only as “Sarah”.
Others, however, who are apathetic about Binford Hall’s being destroyed cite the wildly-popular substance-free section of Bryan Hall. Residential life states that, though the deadline for getting a suite is fast approaching and no one has applied for the substance-free suites, they are expecting “at least two” applications for the seven substance-free suites.
One student, who prefers to remain anonymous, agrees with the proposed deal with MGM stating, “Yeah, this makes about as much sense as, like, a Subway. It’s about time we staged a revolution and made Guilford less quaint.”