A three-quarter Stanford Core program focusing on ab workouts will replace the Thinking Matters requirement for first-year students in the 2020-21 academic year. The pilot program was proposed by committee members of the First-Year Design Team after learning that a previous core proposal focusing on civic education and global citizenship would cost the University $4.7 million per year — twice as much as the Thinking Matters program.

“I know I said we could afford it at a previous Faculty Senate meeting, but I don’t want to take a pay cut again anytime soon. So let’s play it safe and redesign a cheaper core,” said Provost Persis Drell.

The recommendation, shared with students by University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, came from the newly-announced Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Sarah Church.

“We knew we still wanted a core curriculum for students, so we figured the best way to reduce costs was to kill two birds with one stone. By partnering with Stanford Recreation and Wellness, we created a uniform curriculum that also happens to strengthen your core,” Church said.

The core curriculum will consist of 1,000 sit-ups, 10-minute planks and Russian twists. Students will also be encouraged to warm-up prior to the class by running the entire Stanford Dish trail three times.

“The new core implementation will not affect current students, nor SLE, ITALIC nor ESF kids,” Church added. “We figured this proposal was better than having another class solely focusing on the Western canon.”

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

Contact Richard Coca at richcoca ‘at’ stanford.edu.