The state of our campus is strong, according to its satirists.

The Chicago Shady Dealer hosted “The First Annual State of the Campus Address: Building for the Future,” a mock press conference in celebration of April Fools’ Day. The Shady Dealer’s editors-in-chief, fourth-years Stephen Lurie and DJ LoBraico, satirized the University’s development projects and continued construction to an audience of nearly 60 people.

In a lead-up to the event, the student-run humor magazine plastered fliers around campus advertising “A Conversation with the Corpse of Ronald Reagan” with David Axelrod, the shutdown of Burton-Judson Courts “due to unsafe levels of innuendos,” and “Forced Veganism Night” at Cathey Dining Commons, among others. Many of the fliers directed students to Hutchinson Courtyard at 6 p.m. yesterday, the time and place of the press conference.

Donning a mustache of brown construction paper, Lurie, acting as “Vice President of Campus and Students Who are Alive,” began the press conference by affirming there would be cake for attendees, as had been promised on the Facebook event page. He confessed the information advertised on the fliers, though, was false. He then discussed the recent history of the University’s campus development, joking about some of the additions such as the Logan Center.

“What could possibly be needed for the Life of the Mind [to] grow from more to more to more to more to more?” he said. “The answer, of course, was to quarantine all of the distracting artists and performers.”

Noting the recent prevalence of the Cathey name for campus buildings, Lurie declared that the “key to the future” is “the right honorable Arley D. Cathey, praised be his name.”

Following Lurie, LoBraico, acting as “Vice Provost for Manifest Destiny,” introduced the newest Cathey development: the “Cathey Learning Park,” complete with five mobile homes, “only four of which we will ever get around to ordering.” He also announced the reinstitution of football on campus and the opening of a trauma center.

“Though increasingly competitive and expensive to attend, usually immersed in bitterly cold winter, and utilizing the same rigorous Core treatment regimen as always, the College of the University of Chicago will soon officially be rebranding as the Trauma Center at the University of Chicago Medical Center,” he said.

After their remarks, the two fielded questions from several members of the Shady Dealer impersonating reporters from fictitious news agencies around Chicago, including the “Evanston Wanker.” Lurie assured the audience that there were “only five or six undercover police scattered in the crowd.”

The event was the first of its kind. According to fourth-year Shady Dealer writer Sam Spiegel, the Master of Ceremonies for the event, the group hopes to make the press conference an annual tradition on campus. Previous Shady Dealer April Fools’ Day celebrations included a “Mock Films” poster and the production of “Velveeta Excolatur,” a parody of the campus sex magazine, Vita Excolatur.