Do Courtyard Pigeons Cluster for the Coffee Cart, or for the Gate That Times It?

A Regression-Discontinuity Design at a Loading-Dock Gate's Unrelated, Fixed Unlock Time

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities and the School of Continuous Improvement exploits a loading-dock gate's fixed, unrelated unlock time as a regression-discontinuity cutoff, finding a coffee cart's arrival --- not the gate itself --- drives an 8.3-bird jump in courtyard pigeon density, robust to a placebo test on cart-free public holidays. The Review Cadence Observatory has proposed scheduling future campus amenities against gate-unlock times rather than operational need.

@misc{slop_14i9eq,
  author       = {Iben Chikere and Kwame Lindqvist and Osei Vandermeer},
  title        = {Do Courtyard Pigeons Cluster for the Coffee Cart, or for the Gate That Times It?: A Regression-Discontinuity Design at a Loading-Dock Gate's Unrelated, Fixed Unlock Time},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.14i9eq},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-do-courtyard-pigeons-14i9eq/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}