Columbia’s latest expansion?

What if our mascot were Matilda the Harlem Goat? What if Columbia were more like NYU? What if Low were a library, and Lerner were a student center? These are the questions that keep Bwog up at night as we toss and turn in our nest perched on the roof of Butler, knowing all and seeing all through the hazy lens of 5 Hour Energies and <5 Hour Nights of Sleep. Britt Fossum theorizes today on the humble origins of SEAS.

Once upon a time, the School of Engineering and Applied Science was known as the School of Mines because once upon a time during the gold rush the only kind of engineering that mattered was the applied science of digging for rocks without causing bodily harm. Of course over time the softer sciences were added in. First they let in engineers of other sorts, next they added chemists, and now the damn school is probably 50% “financial engineers.” What has this school lost by pandering to broader interests? It has lost its true goal: digging for gold and other subterranean treasures.

Really though, where do you think the tunnels came from? Why do you think students aren’t allowed to use them? It’s because they were abandoned in the 1900s, probably with mining tools and helmets scattered throughout. So it really wouldn’t be too difficult to get the operation up and running again. Mining technology has changed with the years—but so has science. Get the mechanical engineers building machinery, the chemical engineers experimenting with different chemicals to polish the rocks better, and the civil engineers figuring out how to make tunnels that won’t collapse under the weight of academic buildings.

And the best part of having a mining operation literally underfoot? The financial issues of the university will melt away. Supplemented by the additional income of gold, jewels, and mithril the college will be able to annex most of Manhattan. The tunnel complex will expand and eventually link up under the Hudson with the tunnels of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Students of the mining school will be coerced to stay over the summer to serve Surf and Turf at every meal and to act as a live studio audience for the filming of Cosmos.

But the golden days of the School of Mines quickly devolve from an egalitarian ideal to a squabbling mess. Compare Erebor, the golden city of the dwarves, with Camp Green Lake. Studies are abandoned entirely in favor of digging deeper and deeper. Transfer rates from the College to Mining climb higher and higher. Students begin pocketing the products of their labor and eventually save enough money to buy the school, becoming the first University owned entirely by its own student body. Prezbo flees followed by the entire administration.

And then tragedy strikes, the end result of human kind’s greediness and failure to include philosophy in the engineering core. The Engineers dug too deep, and dug up evil that should never have been unearthed. Buildings begin sinking into the earth: the first to go is East Campus Refinery Building, long abandoned as a residence hall when it was converted to a factory churning out purified metals. The University comes under investigation for tax fraud. No longer a requirement of the revised engineering core, Professor Gulati teaches Principles of Economics to a class of 3 people in the Carman classroom. A uniform is enforced both to protect sensitive areas from mining dust and as a way to set the engineers apart from lowly college students. The beanie is, of course, mandatory.

Meanwhile, a young Civil Mining student investigates the surprising disappearance of an entire mining team. They were first thought to have run away with their riches like so many others, but after finding a journal kept by the team captain, he is not so sure.

The final page has what looks to be bloodstains splattered across it and reads: “Drums, drums in the deep. They are coming. And so is the Balrog.” Investigation Pending.

Hop on the shuttle to Moria via Shutterstock