Fashion is a fickle mistress. One day the world’s leading STEM university goes all-in on NetZero, directing every school, department, and center to prioritize climate change research in hopes of sucking down billions from Uncle Sam. The next day there’s a new sheriff in town declaring the whole thing a hoax.

What’s a university president to do? Without the 59% overhead plundered from every government research grant, how can the administration of the world’s leading STEM university keep staff headcount growing?

Taking time out from emergency efforts to rebrand their bloated DEI programs, MIT’s leaders gathered at a tense offsite at the Four Seasons. Their desperate mission? To determine what they should focus on as the next “next big thing.”

“Artificial Intelligence is still pretty hot, isn’t it?” opined the Dean of Skynet Enablement. “Yeah, but how long will that billionaire circus last?” scoffed the Director of Artificial Indigenous Knowledge. “When the AGI bubble inevitably pops we’ll all be pining for the good old days of the dot.com crash.”

“Is it too late to bring back nano?” suggested the Manager of Narrative Fabrication.

“What about fake meat?” squeaked the VP of Vegan Virtue.

The group let out a piteous wail as several began rending their garments.

Finally, the Second Assistant Controller broke the protracted silence.

“How about we let every professor pursue their own basic research passions in search of fundamental scientific truths rather than trying to harness the entire university to the popular social engineering initiative of the moment?”

He was immediately defenestrated as the rest headed off to the bar to drown their sorrows.