In a school-wide email announcement earlier this week, SFS Dean Joel Hellman announced the extension of the SFS Centennial for another year. Former World Bank Chief Economist Hellman wrote: “We are so grateful for how engaged the student body has been in celebrating our institution. The SFS Academic Council is instrumental in this event, from purchasing multiple cakes, to recruiting at least three authoritarians to speak on campus, to finding seven different ways to say ‘happy one hundred.’ We may be technically 101 years old now, but let’s keep the party going until we’re 102.”

The Walsh School of Foreign Service was founded in 1919 following the necessity of diplomacy after the first World War, and they have been planning for the hundredth birthday of the school ever since. Alumni panels, birthday parties, galas, and heavy-handed marketing campaigns have accompanied this year’s celebrations thus far. Hellman remarked that the extension means “more networking opportunities, more SFS merchandise, lots of party hats, and greater opportunity to advance the SFS’s primary goal of strengthening the United States’ global hegemony.”

Critics of the viability of the decision have started a petition requesting that the SFS budget go elsewhere. IPEC major Jared Simmons, SFS ‘21, stated, “We need more money to go towards promoting neoliberalism. I mean, come on. We can and should do better.” Others think that the money is needed for facilities improvement. International Security Professor Franz Kasten-Harper told the Heckler, “The first floor of the ICC smells like poo.” As of Friday evening, the petition had 173 signatures. The SFS Communications Office released a follow-up statement to the extension yesterday, adding, “Stop asking to fix the ICC toilets. It will never happen. Stop. Asking.”

When asked if he understood the definition of “centennial,” Dean Hellman declined to comment.