Juliet Becker/Daily Nexus

University of California, Santa Barbara? More like California Lottery, Santa Barbara. Following the introduction of a lottery selection process for its Honors Program, Resident Advisor hires, on-campus housing and even its meal plan, UCSB has decided to go one step further by introducing a lottery system for the hiring of all new professors. 

Margarita Pi Za, a representative for the Academic Personnel Office at UCSB, gave a statement to The Daily Nexus following the announcement.

 “I’ve always said, if it works for our students, it should work for our staff. We don’t want the smartest, most qualified people – merit is totally outré. We have changed our criteria to be more inclusive of candidates that might not excel in an archaic and boomer academic setting, yet still have a lot to offer the school. We now only ask them to answer two short questions, and tell us their zodiac sign.”

The Daily Nexus was able to speak to one of the new professors that was hired following the system overhaul, but they wished to remain anonymous.

“This is totally off the books, right? Okay so I’ve kinda been in my, like, quarter life crisis, and so I just pulled a few of the answers out of my ass, and maybe hyped myself up a bit. But yeah, there’s no interview so how would they know I didn’t actually finish my masters?” The anonymous source said.

Students such as Chadwick St. James VI, a sixth-year feminist studies major, offered some insight into the student experience following this new hiring system. 

“The prof pulled up to class twenty minutes late still in a full wetsuit, literally trailing water behind him, and projected this boof ass presentation. I could actually smell the Chat GPT coming from the screen, cuz like, lowkey, I’m super familiar with Chat. And they say the students are getting stupider,” James said.

Carmine Dolores, a second year Economics and Accounting major had more to say about the new hires. 

“My teacher said that she doesn’t like talking in front of people, so she plays us Khan Academy videos the whole time. Um, since when did Khan Academy start asking for $40,000 in tuition?” 

There have also been rumors that a 13 year-old was hired by the school due to their lack of interviews in the selection and hiring process. Luckily, The Daily Nexus was able to track down a student that claims he was in the class. 

“Yeah! I was literally in the lecture that hired the ten-year-old. Oh, they were thirteen? My bad. I’m a little pissed they fired him, he was super chill. Bet, it would’ve been the easiest class I’ve taken here,” third-year statistics and data science major Nigel Subin said. 

When contacted by The Daily Nexus for a statement, Margarita Pi Za had only this to say: “It was an oversight on our part, but the necessary legal action has been taken. We do not like to mess around with our hiring.”

The Daily Nexus talked to one last new hire, Allen Vries, who will be joining the faculty as a Distinguished Professor of English, or at least, that’s what the school intended. Allen Vries did not have much to say on his hiring via the lottery selection. 

“Oh shit, I actually have to do work? I thought it was just an award I won or something. Huh,” Vries said.

This is a developing story, one that the Daily Nexus will continue to follow. But, the moral of the story is apparent: what you see is sometimes not what you get. But, at the end of the day, as long as it’s “fair,” it’s fine.

Serrano Ham is suspicious of anything that relies on statistics.