Len Boudreault, Carleton's director of the department of campus safety and resident bad-ass, announced his retirement yesterday.
The pending departure of the living legend was met with almost-unanimous cries of despair from across the Carleton community.
"Len's leaving?" exclaimed second-year master's student Freddie Chan. "Who will protect us now?"
Boudreault's famed exploits have earned him such monikers as "Bad-ass Boudreault," "Carleton's own Chuck Norris," and "the fucking man."
Born on the steppes of Mongolia sometime in the mid-20th century, Boudreault first arrived on Carleton campus in the early 1980s. At the time, the campus resembled a turn-of-the-century Western frontier town, rife with lawlessness and dysentery. The university's graduation and mortality rates were roughly equal, and legend has it the campus served as the inspiration for Gotham City.
But all that changed shortly after Boudreault arrived at his post with the department of campus safety. In his first week, Boudreault single-handedly arrested 38 students and four faculty members, and confiscated 168 weapons.
"The change is remarkable," said a Charlatan editorial published in October 1983. "Violent muggings, arson and littering are at an all-time low. For the first time in recorded memory, students can venture outside after dark in groups smaller than 12. Some of the braver students have even stopped wearing Kevlar vests to class."
Over the next three decades, Boudreault remained ever vigilant, earning the respect of students and criminals alike.
"Two years ago, the accelerator on the O-Train got stuck down," recalled third-year English student Marsden Singh. "Boudreault lay down on the tracks beneath the oncoming train, grabbed the undercarriage as it passed over him, and then punched the engine until the train stopped."
"Just last month, I had a crystal meth lab in one of the maintenance sheds by the river," said former Carleton student Earl Mahavolic. "Boudreault knocked out my hired thugs, walked across broken glass and destroyed all the meth equipment."
"Then, as he walked away from the shed, he put on a pair of sunglasses. And then the shed blew up behind him in a searing orange fireball. And he didn't look back."
Boudreault's life has also been adopted into the popular film series "Die Hard," starring Bruce Willis.
"We actually had to tone down the movies," Willis said, speaking from California. "Boudreault's real life was too intense for audiences."
Admirers gathered on campus yesterday afternoon in a rousing rally, hoisting Boudreault aloft and parading him around campus to cheers and tearful goodbyes.
Boudreault himself was characteristically quiet when asked about his legacy.
"The job needed doing," Boudreault said. "So I got the job done."
"He's a man of very few words," remarked Lucia Gonzalez, a smitten bystander. "But he signed my diploma!"