Cambridge, MA—According to a recent email sent out to students, faculty, and staff, Harvard University executive vice president Katie Lapp has been trapped in an interminable maze of used cardboard boxes.
“Dear members of the Harvard community,” reads the email, which was sent over the campus-notify email listserv, “Welcome back to school! In addition, while monitoring the status of undergraduate move-in, I found myself wandering through the area of the river houses at dusk, bereft my contact lenses. Before I knew it, I found myself circled by insurmountable walls of Collegeboxes. The heat of the setting sun, concentrated in the narrow corridors of cardboard in which I found myself, beat down upon me as hot air is wont to do, and before I knew it I had fainted in the back-to-school labyrinth, unable to utter any cry for assistance.”
Lapp, who supervises the financial, administrative, human resources, campus services, planning and project management, development in Allston, health services, information technology, and diversity functions of the University, was then hoisted into the air and dumped into a recycling truck, which barreled down the highway, the thunder of the wheels masking the muffled banging from the inside of the vehicle. She managed to send a final email before being unloaded onto the conveyor belt of a recycling plant in Peabody, Massachusetts.
“We will continue to closely monitor the forecast,” added Lapp, inexplicably, in her email. “Should weather conditions warrant schedule changes, we will distribute information through MessageMe and email. Updates will also be posted to the Harvard Emergency page and 866-496-NEWS.” The message was promptly sent again by the FAS Emergency Notification System and by Leslie Kirwan, Dean for Administration and Finance at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Stephen Lassonde, Harvard College Dean of Student Life; all 12 House administrators; several dozen other functionaries; and multiple parents of the Class of 2019, writing on their children’s Facebook walls.
Harvard authorities are currently in the process of calling every recycling center in the Boston metro area, requesting that they halt all operations and search in their piles of recycled cubes of plastic for any sign of the Executive Vice President, like a pantsuit sleeve or a shock of blonde hair crying out.
Image source: Harvard Magazine
