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BREAKING: Confucius Appointed as New University Provost

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Photo by InSapphoWeTrust / CC BY-SA 2.0. Photo by Rob Web / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. (With edits.)

Penn has selected Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period, often considered the paragon of Chinese sages, Confucius, to serve as the University’s new provost, said President Magill. 

Confucius will replace Beth Winkelstein, bioengineering professor and interim provost. Confucius will be the first Chinese, first Confucian, as well as the first non-living individual to serve as Penn provost. 

Board of Trustees Chair Scott L. Bok announced Confucius’s appointment in an email sent Monday morning to the University Community. He wrote that this appointment would be a tenured position, effective for the lifetime of Provost Confucius. He further explained that since Confucius sadly passed away some 2,500 years ago, the tenure would not be bound to his course of life, rendering the position effective until the last God destroys the last Universe, or in the words of the new provost himself, the individual immortality is realized through his descendants.

Confucius’s confirmation as provost is pending the Board of Trustees’ confirmation at the upcoming December meeting. A source close to the trustees revealed that the confirmation hinges on several key questions: Confucius’s involvement with the Watergate scandal, the alleged embezzlement over the profit from the publication of The Analects, as well as his official stance on the Balkan Wars.

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones,” Confucius remarked in Ancient Chinese, “and a journey of a thousand miles starts from the first step.” When asked about how, as provost, he plans to help non-Chinese-speaking students at Penn understand his thoughts and teachings, he responded: “They have those? Lmao.”

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