Opinion: PSU Needs to Change. Start with the Name.
By Jerry Swedberg
Published April 21, 2026
It’s high time PSU made some cultural changes to campus to fit the new direction and interest of the school’s leadership. Given the recent cuts to the English and Communications departments, it seems the trajectory of PSU is towards what every great institution should strive to be—an enormous wealth vacuum. Now that groundwork structural changes have occurred, the appearance of the institution can change without subtlety and in time for the upcoming fall term. The staff that would have furthermore seen these changes and began to negotiate better terms of their employment and separation have luckily been washed out of the system in the most wealth-preserving way and without serious harm to the institution’s current image of a humanities department that values and cultivates critical thinking skills.
Chiefly, Plymouth State should once again move to the most alluring institutional label to appeal to the upcoming generation. What once was a college and then a university should dawn its cocoon once again this summer and emerge with new wings as Plymouth State Inc. After speaking with some of the board members responsible for the merchandising, this change may also be swapped for Plymouth State Corp., as PSC merch could be reinstated from the college-era without payment towards new artist licensing. Some of my business major associates have pointed an even note towards merchandising, with one stating, “You can just ask ChatGPT to do the art. I already use it for all my classes.”
Another proposed change is the removal of the Robert Frost statue outside Rounds Hall. The statue would be shipped off to a local refinery where the brass would be melted down and made back into the shape of a urinal with the internal engraving “Pee Further Up Here” and placed upon the ruin of Mary-Lyon’s construction site of a lawn. There would be no attached plumbing, as students would be encouraged to bring back Plymouth’s staple smell of raw sewage.
Finally, buildings like Rounds and Memorial would be demolished to make room for more parking lots with passes starting at $300/year. The White Mountain Apartments could also be expanded to these areas to create a greater centralized spot to accommodate more failsons and add fuel to the culture of underage drinking and Title IX violations.
That concludes with the proposed changes for PSU (or PSC). With academic integrity out the window along with the professors that cultivate the gentler lines of thought without focus on wealth acquisition, it can finally be Pirate Party all the time and we can dance with our tankards full of grog and dump our chests full of doubloons all over the desks of USNH shareholders.
How about we hook up a turbine to Robert Frost’s grave and save a little on electricity as he spins round-and-round looking at the state of this institution? A while back, I saw a mouse drop from the ceiling of Merrill Place’s lobby and I thought, “He’s the only one getting any use out of going here!”