BREAKING: University announces Forum expansion, citing ‘overwhelmingly positive’ student reception
The University has today confirmed plans for a campus-wide ‘revamp’ based on the Forum, which is set to begin after Easter.
A statement released by the University this morning announced the unprecedented development plan.
“We are delighted with the overwhelmingly positive reaction students have exhibited towards the Forum in its first few months, and so it is with great satisfaction that we can finally confirm plans to expand the project in the coming weeks.
“As students return to campus following the spring break, they can expect to see work begin rapidly on the colourful enhancement of University infrastructure across campus.
We recognise that this is a bold move, but it is one which we hope will reflect Warwick’s revitalised and unshackled brand identity moving forward
University statement
“The pink will spread far and wide as part of our quest to revamp and modernise Warwick’s heretofore grey architectural landscape.”
The statement continued: “We recognise that this is a bold move, but it is one which we hope will reflect Warwick’s revitalised and unshackled brand identity moving forward.”
The results of October’s ‘Brand Evolution Survey’ revealed that 54% of respondents thought ‘Beyond’ was the brand positioning statement most reflective of Warwick’s global ambitions in the next decade.
Citing this data, the University punned that it has “opted to go truly above and ‘beyond’ by spreading that pink magic a little further”.
One second-year told the The Boar: “They’ve clearly had this under wraps for a while. The Forum appears to have been a trial run.”
Named after the University’s ongoing anniversary celebrations, the so-called “Pink 60 blueprint” unveiled today explained how Warwick’s pinkwashing will commence.
A swarm of pink vans and Chinooks will descend on campus as part of what is expected to be the largest-scale deployment of pink paint at any higher education institution in history.
A dedicated Estates task force will also be mobilised to facilitate the transition.
Chinook helicopters will be mobilised to drop coatings of pink paint from the skies. Image: Rob Schleiffert / Flickr
Key structures marked out for makeovers include the Koan, which will further be programmed to emit a soft pink beacon of light at nighttime to help inebriated students get home.
Aquatic engineers will also be conscripted to tint the campus lake pink, in a move inspired by the dye used annually to turn the Chicago River green for St. Patrick’s Day
Meanwhile, students can expect to see the pink-focused renaming of campus sites, with “chromatic conformity” cited as the driving factor behind the renamed ‘Pink Room’, ‘Pinkbell’, and the soon-to-disappear ‘Pinkfields’ accommodation.
Aquatic engineers will also be conscripted to tint the campus lake pink, in a move inspired by the dye used annually to turn the Chicago River green for St. Patrick’s Day.
The University has asserted that “no stone will be left unpinked”, an ambitious target which has befuddled many spectators.
Speaking to The Boar, one history professor suggested that this development is “architectural revisionism at its most preposterous and absurd”.
Concerns have also been raised by students over the timing of this move – alongside the move itself.
Eurovision is also set to be cancelled for the second year in a row, with the University apologising that the Piazza’s pink paint job will not be dry in time
The approaching exam season is set to be disrupted by the mass closure of major buildings usually filled with revision-cramming students – buildings which are now pencilled in for a fuchsia renovation.
The University has urged students to “please avoid the library and go and enjoy the great outdoors instead”, emphasising the “sheer abundance” of green (and soon to be pink) spaces available for use.
Eurovision is also set to be cancelled for the second year in a row, with the University apologising that the Piazza’s pink paint job will not be dry in time.
One student condemned the unfortunate timing as “thoughtless”, suggesting, “if they had to do this, they could have at least waited until summer. What’s the rush?”
Elsewhere, Warwick Student Cinema (WSC)’s exec team has been instructed to only screen 2023’s Barbie until further notice, a “unilateral directive” which the group say they are “appalled” by.
Early estimates by decorating experts have placed the expansion scheme at a possible £100 million, twice the cost of the Sports and Wellness Hub and the equivalent of 10,488 home students’ annual tuition fees
The ‘pinkification’ more broadly has come under fire, particularly after an FOI request by The Boar revealed the original Forum’s £200,000 cost in December.
Early estimates by decorating experts have placed the expansion scheme at a possible £100 million, twice the cost of the Sports and Wellness Hub and the equivalent of 10,488 home students’ annual tuition fees from the 2025/26 academic year.
Eyebrows have been raised over the feasibility of such an investment at a time when many universities are experiencing financial deficits. Student retention may also be a worry, with projections of a mass exodus of students following the ‘Forum-isation’ of Warwick.
Asked by The Boar if this would finally tip Warwick over the edge, a University spokesperson quipped, “at least we’ll go into the pink before we go into the red”.
The colour tone in question, known as ‘Baker-Miller pink’, has been found to temporarily reduce hostile and violent behaviour, and has previously been implemented in mental institutions for this purpose.
Students have acted quickly in mobilising against the pink expansion, with anger coalescing under the banner of newly set-up campaign group ‘Sink the Pink’ (STP)
Asked if this issue factored into the change, the spokesperson replied: “In fact, pink has been scientifically proven to enhance academic performance. This modification really could catapult Warwick to the top of the global rankings.”
Students have acted quickly in mobilising against the pink expansion, with anger coalescing under the banner of newly set-up campaign group ‘Sink the Pink’ (STP).
The anti-pink league has already gained a major following in the hours since the University’s announcement, with threats of a militarised campaign should the proposed Forum expansion not be rescinded soon.
Leaked documents shown to The Boar by a University functionary who wished to remain anonymous suggest there are plans to import flamingos from East Africa as part of the stated push for tonal conformity across campus.
As a result, West Midlands environmental groups, alongside popular Instagram page ‘warwick_geese_premium’, have raised concerns over the unknown fate of the campus geese, with some conspiracy theorists suspecting a genetic modification programme is already underway.
Strong rumours indicate that the University is researching the possibility of importing flamingos as a potential replacement for the Warwick geese. Image: Pedro Szekely / Flickr
The University stressed that “sustainability will always be a priority here at Warwick”, noting how “sustainable partnerships with leading pink paint suppliers have been forged in recent weeks”.
We will fight this fight whatever the cost. The purple will not be taken away from us
Sink the Pink (STP) statement
Nevertheless, there are growing fears over a potential monopolisation of the pink paint market.
Brushing this aside, the spokesperson assured: “When the project is complete, Warwick’s dreamy rebrand will attract global investment like never before.”
In an Instagram story, STP promised to rally against the pinkification.
“We will fight this fight whatever the cost. The purple will not be taken away from us.”
Edit: I’m sure you’ve realised by now, but this was indeed FAKE NEWS!! Chinooks will NOT be dropping pink paint from the skies and Lakeside will NOT be dyed pink. Happy APRIL FOOLS’ from The Boar News!
Comments (15)
All Gods, in time, fade; who amongst us remembers Athena? Worships Tal’ak’tur? Sings the praises of the Great Blind One? There will be a day when all the deities we hold dear to ourselves wither into dust and fiction — how long, then, will anyone value Pink? Truly it is folly that we pursue this deification of such a colour, to the detriment of all else on our campus. I pray for wisdom, and fear for our campus’s identity in these times of unfettered globalised expansion.
this made me come back to life and make a new song
https://suno.com/song/7b08fd81-3942-4e38-a16f-897827b217ea?show_comments=true
🔥🔥🔥
With the pinkwashing, they could have helped provide free medication through converting some of the lakes on campus into pepto bismol liquid (the same pink as the Forum). This feels purely performative and disingenuous 🙁
“Vir prudens non purpura, sed rosea induitur.” — Marcus Terentius Varro (De Colore et Virtute, lost work)
A wise man clothes himself not in purple, but in pink. Thus spoke Varro, the most learned of Romans, a man whose encyclopedic mind grasped what so many emperors failed to see: that true strength lies not in ostentation, but in temperance. And what is pink, if not the perfect balance between the rashness of red and the arrogance of white? It is neither the hue of tyranny nor submission, but of measured rule, the shade of civilization itself.
Contrast, if you will, the ruinous excesses of purple, that most hubristic of dyes. “He usurped the rights of kings, even to the point of wearing the purple-clad triumphator’s robe in public,” wrote Suetonius (Divus Julius 76) of Caesar. And what was his reward? Twenty-three knives, wielded by men who saw that his Tyrian finery foretold a crown. Polybius rightly called purple “the shroud of despots” (Histories 6.56), for those who swathe themselves in it are doomed to meet their end in ruin.
Pink, however, is a colour that endures. It is the rosy-fingered dawn, the first light of progress. Cicero tells us that “power compels, but grace persuades” (De Officiis 1.33)—and what is pink, if not power made graceful? When the great Scipio Africanus triumphed over Carthage, did he demand the robes of kings? No! He donned the faded red of his soldiers, the very shade which, when softened by wisdom, becomes pink.
So let those who thirst for dominion wrap themselves in purple—but let them beware. “The tallest towers fall the hardest,” warned Ovid, and purple has known no shortage of ruin. Those who seek not to dominate but to endure will choose pink—the hue of loyalty, of wisdom, of rule that does not crush but cultivates.
THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT PINK
Open your eyes. Pink is the most powerful colour on Earth, and that’s why THEY are trying to erase it.
Think about it—why do kings, emperors, and billionaires always push purple as the colour of “power”? Because it keeps YOU weak. Purple is a trap. The colour of doomed rulers, failed empires, and washed-up celebrities. Meanwhile, pink? They’ve convinced you it’s soft, girly, harmless.
WRONG. Pink is balance. Pink is strength. Pink is unstoppable. That’s why they don’t want you wearing it. It’s why warning signs are pink. It’s why raw meat is pink. It’s primal.
They’ve fed you LIES for centuries. “Pink is new.” “Pink is weak.” “Pink is just for babies.” Wake up! They don’t want you to know the truth: If everyone embraced pink, the system would collapse.
Reject the propaganda. Wear pink. Think pink. BE PINK.
Glad to see that my colour is finally making waves across the pond. Enjoy!
It is a lamentable stain upon the annals of history that the noblest colour of them all—pink—has been so maligned, so misunderstood, so unjustly relegated to the realm of sentimentality and soft furnishings. This error is the fault of those insidious purveyors of chromatic tyranny: the devotees of purple.
Consider, if you will, the fate of Gaius Julius Caesar, whose tragic assassination, that seminal moment in the decline of the Roman Republic, can be traced not merely to political ambition, but to sartorial hubris. For did he not drape himself in the forbidden purple, that most arrogant and deluded of dyes, the shade of would-be autocrats and enemies of the res publica? Suetonius, ever the keen observer, notes that Caesar “usurped the rights of kings, even to the point of wearing the purple-clad triumphator’s robe in public” (Divus Julius 76). This, dear reader, was the true crime, more galling even than his refusal to rise for the Senate—he dared to adorn himself in that sacred yet sacrilegious shade.
And what was the consequence? Twenty-three well-earned puncture wounds.
Let this serve as a warning to all who would claim purple as the hue of power. It is not the colour of righteous dominion, but of hubris, of excess, of doomed men who believe themselves gods. It is the shade of tyrants, the dye of delusions, the chromatic harbinger of inevitable deposition.
Pink, however—pink is untainted by such wretched ambition. It is the colour of measured elegance, of refined taste, of those who understand that to govern well is to charm rather than to oppress. It is the compromise between the brashness of red and the folly of white, a hue that neither overreaches nor submits. Indeed, what is pink but the via media, the Aristotelian golden mean of the spectrum?
The Greeks, in their wisdom, understood this. Homer may sing of the “rosy-fingered dawn” (ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς), yet no such poetic epithet exists for purple. No one speaks of a “tyrian-tinted twilight” with reverence, for it is a colour of endings, of night’s encroachment, of whispered conspiracies in the shadows. Pink, by contrast, is a colour of beginnings, of the hopeful blush of morning, of Apollo’s first kiss upon the sky.
Thus, let the misguided worshippers of purple beware. Those who cling to it seek only their own downfall, drawn as they are to its ruinous vanity. The wise among us must embrace pink—not merely as a colour, but as an ideal, as a philosophy, as the chromatic standard under which all true civilization must march.
For purple may inspire fear, but pink inspires loyalty. And history shows us which one lasts longer.
Flamingos instead of geese is the best idea to come from Warwick in years.
Its been a long time coming. I could never get a seat at the Forum since it’s always jam-packed with people taking full advantage of the pink. Glad that this is finally democratising access to the wonders of the Forum.
Outrageously biased article from the Boar. Did you even interview any of the majority MaWPA (Make Warwick Pink Again) movement?
Well said!
As chairman and CEO of RCA Records this matter has recently come to my attention. I would like to take this opportunity to reassure Warwick students that we are actively assessing the feasibility of running an emergency P!nk concert at the landmark we believe you refer to as ‘The Koan’, in direct response to the STP coalition.
Rest assured, we take this situation with the utmost seriousness.
When are we going to counter protest against the STP?
The Forum expansion has been long overdue and we cannot let the STP win.
Without question, The Boar’s greatest article to date.
Get Nikolai a promotion immediately and somebody nominate him and the article for some awards. Fantastic work!
Well this article has certainly tickled me pink! 😂