ALLENTOWN, PA—University officials announced Monday afternoon that they had selected a powerhouse performer to serve as both Slope Day headliner and Senior Convocation speaker; the individual’s availability was confirmed via Craigslist.
The heavy-hitter in question, Jerry Ferguson, hails from Allentown, PA and—according to his Facebook profile—is an “aspiring 29-year-old musician with mad guitar Skillz”. On April 25, Ferguson responded to a Craigslist listing (“Urgent. Seeking musical performer and public speaker. Limited financial compensation”) posted by an unnamed university administrator, and was subsequently vetted for suitability.
In an interview with a Kotlikoff-appointed task force of talent agents, Ferguson enumerated his past experiences in both relevant fields. “Uhh, I took a public speaking class in high school, I think,” explained the Allentown native. “And I was in this awesome band senior year, too. Aw, man! You should’ve heard us. We did a mean cover of Back in Black by AC/DC. We pretty much got all these gigs, but, like, most of them never really went through, per se. Oh—we did play at my boy Kevin’s sister’s birthday party.”
In a secondary political evaluation, Ferguson self-described as “politically moderate and fiscally conservative”. Although he also expounded upon his skepticism of “the globalist elite,” the task force eventually determined that Jerry was not, in the words of an internal memo, “visibly political”, and selected him as an appropriate performer.
Ferguson will be compensated with a $200 performance fee from Cornell’s remaining programming funds. “Two hundo! Score!” commented the new headliner in a statement to the press. “Hey, wanna hear ‘Smoke on the Water’?”
