Dear Campus Community,

    We are writing to address a disturbing new trend on campus. You may have heard rumors about a few incidents involving student safety, and we want to assure you that the problem is under control. We are taking the reports of attacks on students very seriously, and we are sorry to report that many of the rumors regarding recent campus events are true. We have indeed confirmed the sightings of magical creatures, including trolls, pixies and malicious djinn. Graduate students of the occult have traced these disturbances to a planar rift located in Evans Hall, which has long been known to attract the Damned. Thankfully, our janitorial witches have nearly shut this latest portal. The creatures from beyond will, in due time, retreat to the Nether.

    In the meantime, campus security officials are hard at work ensuring the safety of students and their firstborn children. For the next ten days, students may collect an allotment of holy water from the Cal 1 Kiosk, which will help repel the swarms of harpies that have been looting the Golden Bear Market. Later this week, campus police plan to conduct a series of raids on the tribe of wendigo that have taken up residence in the basement of Dwinelle Hall, as their ear-splitting shrieks and bloodthirsty raids on classrooms make normal instruction difficult. For their own protection, students are advised to break up their silhouettes by wearing striped clothing, which will confuse the vicious but colorblind owl-bears. As for the unicorns, they have done little more harm than eating the rare plants at the Botanical Gardens. We expect the Oakland Zoo to contain the situation within the week, though we advise students not to get too close to their sharp, poisonous horns.

    On a more regrettable note, we are greatly disturbed by the unauthorized vigilante efforts of some students. While a healthy amount of vampire-slaying is important to campus discourse, unbridled, it only undermines our attempts to foster a safe learning environment. We discourage students, in the strongest terms, from joining adventuring parties not pre-approved by the Office of Student Conduct. If even one member of your guild is caught damaging campus property or breaking our quarantine of Northside, you may all be subject to disciplinary action. If you feel that you must address the issue, be sure to register with The Office of the Chancellor, and you will receive your questing permit and key-card access to the campus armory within 9-12 days.

    As we are working through these problems, please continue attending classes as usual, even if you suspect that your professor has been replaced by a doppelgänger, infested by a moth-man, or taken by a wight. If any of these is the case and you survive the semester with your soul intact, you have the option of receiving an Incomplete grade and retaking the course during a more cosmically stable semester.

     We appreciate your support during these difficult times. We also hope you agree that these unnatural circumstances justify a small additional stipend, for myself and the UC Regents, in order to subsidize our exorcisms. We expect to preserve the quality of our education and the lives of our remaining students well into the future.   
Sincerely,

Robert J. Birgeneau,
Chancellor