CHICAGO—Citing the release of 722 papers that resolve or advance hundreds of open problems, math departments across the country announced Wednesday that they would rebrand as recess, effective immediately.

"The machines finished," said Dr. Alan Brevik, chair of a large Midwestern mathematics department, standing beside a chalkboard on which someone had written GONE OUTSIDE. "We checked. Honestly, a computer checked. It went fine."

Under the new structure, graduate seminars will be replaced with four square, and the annual colloquium will be held on the swings, subject to a sign-up sheet.

Faculty meetings will continue as scheduled, administrators confirmed, but will take place on the jungle gym, where the department expects to spend most of the fall arguing over who gets the top.

"For centuries, mathematicians stayed inside proving things," said Brevik. "Now a computer knocks one out in about three hours. We have several centuries of afternoons to make up."

Some departments have been slower to adjust. One reported that its number theorists had gone outside, measured the playground, and filed an inquiry into whether the four square court was actually square.

The budget office praised the change, noting that recess requires no chalk, no journal subscriptions, and only one whistle, which the dean has asked to hold.

At press time, the department had called an emergency meeting after a tetherball problem proved unexpectedly difficult.