Ethan Brown ‘25
Features Editor
Cookie Friday is dead—long live Cookie Friday. That is the message Student Affairs sent to UVA Law by announcing that its famous Cookie Fridays are changing to bring one massive eight-foot-diameter cookie into the Law School for students to collectively gnaw on, like rabbits, every Friday morning. While the decision abandons the individually portioned cookies that students know and love, the new, streamlined Big Cookie design presents unparalleled opportunities for student gathering at the end of every week.
Every Friday, a representative from Student Affairs will work with Building Services to wheel in the Big Cookie, haul it up on the stage in Caplin Auditorium, and place it on a large pedestal. The cookie, which weighs 400 pounds, will then be opened up to student consumption. Students can arrive starting at 10 a.m. to grab a bite of the cookie, though with several restrictions. First, no utensils are allowed—so no knives, scissors, forks, or tongs are permitted. Second, no hoarding the chocolate chips. Any student found carefully optimizing their bite to maximize the amount of chocolate chips in their mouthful will be excluded from future Cookie Fridays and eliminated from the community. Third, one bite per visit. No gluttons tolerated on North Grounds.
In addition to cutting down on paper waste from individual cookies, the Big Cookie initiative is a chance to bring students together. No longer will students have to grab their cookies and engulf them whole while scurrying away in shame. Big Cookie provides students the chance to gather with their friends through the communal experience of choking on a massive cookie with the texture of a stale cracker at 10:47 in the morning, as God intended.
When students asked the inevitable questions of “why,” and “how,” and “what the fuck,” Student Affairs asked them if they would be willing to start bringing their own cookies in to eat on Fridays instead of trying out the new Big Cookie option.
“No,” everyone said. “The whole point of Cookie Friday is that the cookies are free.”
In response, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs Sarah Davies ’91 took a long drag on her cigarette and looked smugly off into the distance. She knew that this was her stage, and that we were nothing but her puppets—ones that wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds us. But you know what we will bite? An eight-foot cookie.
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