University Life

On June 5th, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that “Auburn University’s Board of Trustees [has] unanimously approved new policies that dissolve the existing University Senate and give the board greater control over curriculum” (Chronicle online). 

Implementation of this decision took place on the morning of June 10th, when — one by one — all 26 members of the University Senate were dissolved in an industrial drum filled with sodium hydroxide.  

According to Grady Polk, Auburn’s Campus Police Chief, “it took about three hours to get the whole job done, and the process went pretty much as one would expect.  There was a lot of screaming, of course.  The professors who grew up in organized-crime families were the calmest; this wasn’t their first rodeo, as the saying goes.  The loudest folks were the post-modernist Sociology faculty, who discovered that sodium hydroxide isn’t a social construction; it’s objective reality, and it burns.”

When Chief Polk was informed that he had misinterpreted what the Board of Trustees meant by its use of the term “dissolve,” he took full responsibility for the mistake.  “That’s my bad,” he said.  “You know, my gut was telling me all along that what we were doing was a bit harsh.  Then again, this is Alabama we’re talking about.  ‘S**t Happens’ is our state motto.  Next time, I’ll check and make sure that everybody is on the same page.” 

 

The recent Chronicle of Higher Education headline, “Soaring Athletics Costs Raise Alarms,” has become a familiar refrain on college campuses around the country (Academe Today, May 28th online).  Simply put, where are schools going to find the big money to pay athletes in high-profile sports?

Leave it to Texas Governor Greg Abbott to come up with a strategy for finessing this challenge.  On September 1, 2026, the state’s maximum-security prison in Livingston, Texas will be renamed Livingston University, with all of its inmates immediately becoming eligible to play Division I football.  

At a press conference in Austin on Saturday, Governor Abbott told reporters that “we have some amazing athletes at the Livingston facility, and it won’t take much training to transform them into top-notch football players.  Many of them are already buff from working out in the yard, and virtually all of them are highly aggressive and homicidal, traits that are essential for excelling in football in the Lone Star State. 

“We won’t be paying our student-athletes anything, because we can offer them a much stronger incentive to perform well: years subtracted from their prison sentence.  Every time Livingston University wins a game, each member of the team will have his sentence reduced by 2 years.  Hell, by the end of just one season, even a guy riding the bench could have had 20 years or more sliced from the time he has to serve in Livingston.  Death-row inmates will have their sentences converted to life in prison after the first victory.  And lifers need just one win to be granted a 50-year sentence.  From that point on, the sentence goes down by 2 years with every win. 

“Every prison in the state will have a transfer portal so inmates at those facilities can switch to Livingston University if they have the motivation and the talent to succeed.  Livingston will offer 2 degrees: a Bachelor of Finance in Sports Management and a Bachelor of Science in Garage-Based Firearms Manufacturing and Distribution.  Our graduates will be returning to their communities with marketable skills and the discipline to use them.

“Today, I pledge to all Texans: we will have a national champion in Division I football within the next 5 years, and we won’t have to spend a fortune in NIL compensation to do it.”

Livingston University will open its 2026 season with a home game against Rice University on Saturday, September 5th at 1:00 pm.  Fans planning to attend the game should allow extra time for getting through Campus Security. 

On May 15th, the trustees of Cornell University declared their unanimous support for Michael Kotlikoff, the school’s President, whose car had bumped into a student activist during a May 1st campus protest (Chronicle of Higher Education Daily Briefing, May 18th online). 

Historians of higher education were quick to point out that the narrative doesn’t always end this well for high-level university administrators involved in vehicular incidents.  Perhaps the most famous episode occurred on November 26, 1936, when Oklahoma State University’s football team lost 35-13 to its archrival, the University of Oklahoma. 

In the final seconds of the game, OSU’s enraged President, Casper Buttonfield, commandeered a giant combine harvester and drove it the full length of the field, mowing down both teams, their coaches, game officials, cheerleaders, and Pistol Pete, OSU’s cowboy mascot.  The grim toll: 28 dead, 43 seriously injured.  

OSU’s trustees took action quickly, suspending Butterfield without pay for a full semester and requiring him to fund the resodding of the field with his personal resources.    

The unrepentant President told reporters, “I’m at peace with what I did, and I’d do it all over again.  When your team plays that poorly, there must be consequences.  This is Oklahoma, folks, not Long Island.”

If you’re wondering how much ransom was paid to the hackers who recently breached the Canvas learning-management system (Chronicle of Higher Education, May 12th online), the answer is: NOT. ONE. DIME.

As it turns out, what the hackers wanted — and got — was not money, but access.  Specifically, they demanded that 25 white male college seniors with GPAs less than 1.5 be admitted to the medical school of their choice. 

The agreement that was reached stipulated that neither the names of the students nor the identities of the medical schools would be disclosed. 

According to Steve Daly, the CEO of Canvas’s parent company, “this was the best outcome for all concerned.  Let’s face it: white guys in the United States are having a tough time these days, and we need to find a way to make them productive members of society.  Initially, we were concerned that this deal might violate the federal government’s prohibition of DEI activities, but Linda McMahon at the Department of Education told us, ‘not a problem, it’s all good’, because no racial minorities or women would be benefitting.  Hell, we’re going to make medical schools GREAT again!”  

 

 

The headline of the essay by Yale Professor Samuel Moyn reads: “Professors are Too Old: The Academy’s Gerontocracy Problem is Worse Than Anyone Admits” (Chronicle of Higher Education, April 23rd online).  

Professor Moyn may have a point.  Consider Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where the faculty recently took a vote of no confidence in its President, Alison Byerly.  The motion passed by an overwhelming margin.  A week prior to the vote, President Byerly had announced a new policy that requires all deceased faculty members at Carleton to retire.   

Nelson Filshoot, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of Carleton’s Faculty Senate, declared the policy to be “outrageous and discriminatory. This is yet another example of oppression perpetuated by the ‘League of the Living’, who deny rights to those who no longer breathe.

“In 2026, there’s absolutely no reason that a dead faculty member can’t continue to thrive in the classroom.  We have AI, which can provide lectures and assignments, and teaching assistants, who can grade students’ work.  Where’s the problem?

“Please let our deceased colleagues keep serving the institution.  It’s the right thing to do, and President Byerly knows it.  There’s a lot more to being a professor than prancing around campus, looking all ‘alive’.”

Carleton’s Board of Trustees will decide the President’s fate at a closed meeting on May 28th.  

 

TRUE FACT:  The Tennessee state legislature has proposed a ban on “staging walkouts” during presentations by speakers at public universities.  The bill awaits Governor Bill Lee’s signature (Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17th online). 

Not surprisingly, the proposal has generated controversy, but this wouldn’t be the first time that constraints have been placed on audiences at institutions of higher education around the country.  Consider the following:

— At DePaul University in Chicago, students can be disciplined for having “impure thoughts” while observing panel discussions.  According to DePaul President Robert L. Manuel, “far too many of our students were imagining that the panelists were naked and doing weird stuff on the stage.  That’s not okay.”

— At Harvard Divinity School, disgruntled students are not allowed to ask a speaker, “Is it true that you are a demon child born out of wedlock to Satan and a rabid Rottweiler?”  Notes Marla Frederick, Dean of the School:  “You can’t say that even if it’s true.”

— At the University of Charleston, a bored member of the audience can’t start humming like a mosquito and then slap the bare neck of the person sitting in front of them.  Charleston President Marty Roth acknowledges that “it’s actually a pretty funny stunt, but it’s still wrong.”

— On the campus of Boston College, a student can be suspended for urging the congregation to sing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” during Mass.  And if that student succeeds in getting people to stand up, raise their arms, and perform The Wave during Communion, he or she will be expelled. 

— Any cadet at the U. S. Military Academy (West Point) who crunches loudly on a corn chip during assembly will be removed and shot.  “Discipline begins at home,” says Lieutenant General Steven Gilland, Superintendent of the Academy,

Governor Lee?  The ball — and bill — is in your court. 

 

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Boston University is pausing its removal of…pride flags…from outward-facing windows following weeks of controversy over the practice” (April 6th online).  

The pause results from a creative compromise that has been negotiated with LGBTQ+ groups on the BU campus.  Beginning May 1st, all window-based pride flags will be replaced with banners displaying the Periodic Table of Elements.  BU President Melissa Gilliam notes that “99% of every human being — including every member of the LGBTQ+ community — is composed of 6 elements: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, and phosporus.  The Periodic Table honors ALL of us, and the Department of Justice has indicated that the banners will not violate the current federal prohibition of DEI activities on college campuses. 

“Also, the multi-colored Periodic Table that we will use is designed to capture the rainbow spirit of pride flags.  Let’s face it: gay, straight, or something else, we’re all basically made up of water and a few other substances.  We should focus our attention on that fact and not get distracted by disputes over how we choose to go bump in the night.   

“Just for the record, the response of BU’s STEM faculty to this compromise can be summed up in one word: ECSTATIC.  As the Chairperson of the Chemistry Department told me yesterday, ‘this is going to be the best study aid EVER for our undergraduates who know how to read!’

BREAKING NEWS:  The Trump Administration is suing Harvard University “for every single thing it has done throughout its history,” according to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.  

McMahon claims that “the elitist, lunatic-left pestilence that is Harvard must be eliminated once and for all, and the best way to do that, short of nuking the place, is to sue their asses from here to Hoboken.”

Among the offenses Harvard is being accused of are the following Top Ten:

1. Residing in Massachusetts, “a state ruled by witches and other Brides of Satan.”
2. Providing vegetarian options at every meal in its dining halls but never offering fried panda.
3. Refusing to accept applicants whose parents took them to Monster Truck shows when they were young.   
4. Prohibiting cheerleaders from Hooters from performing at its intercollegiate squash tournaments. 
5. Sponsoring squash tournaments filled with undergraduate dweebs rather than funding a mechanical-bull-riding team composed of NIL-worthy athletes. 
6. Nicknaming itself the Harvard Crimson when every red-blooded American knows that the “Crimson” label is legally owned by the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide.
7. Never hosting a Three Tenors concert featuring Merle Haggard, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Travis Tritt. 
8. Declining the President’s invitation to call itself “Trump Harvard University.”
9. Providing ATMs on campus but not offering slot machines, casinos, or paid escort services. 
10. Failing to award Melania Trump an honorary doctorate in Face Science. 

“Inform Harvard that the end is near,” McMahon told reporters.  “We all look forward to the day it wakes up face down in the Charles River.”

 

The Midland College Board of Trustees recently voted to allow two companies to drill for oil on its Midland, Texas campus.  The drilling is expected to generate approximately $20 million in revenue for the college over the next 25 years (Midland Reporter-Telegram, March 2nd online). 

But what about universities that aren’t sitting atop a big ol’ bucket of crude?  Not to worry.  Consider the actions taken by creative administrators at these three well-known institutions of higher education. 

New York University:  The school has given Squeak Supply, Inc. — a New Jersey-based company that furnishes research institutes with rodents for laboratory experiments — permission to capture as many as 7,500 rats per month on its main campus in Greenwich Village.  

According to NYU President Linda Mills, “this is New York City we’re talking about.  We have many, many more rats in our buildings than we have students.  Our motto is, ‘never sit down without checking first’.  Squeak Supply is paying us $3.50 for every rat it retrieves.  It’s a win-win if I ever saw one.”

Yale Law School:  Empirical studies indicate that Yale Law professors have egos that are roughly three to five times the size of the average law school faculty member, including those at Harvard.  Twice a year, medical technicians at Yale New Haven Hospital perform minimally invasive surgery on these professors to drain the excess egonic fluid from their brains. 

“It’s a 15-minute, single-puncture procedure requiring only a local anesthetic,” claims Cristina Rodriguez, Dean of the Law School.  “We sell the extracted fluid to companies that manufacture multi-vitamins for individuals suffering from low self-esteem.  The university makes money, and we end up with faculty members who are much less of a pain in the ass to deal with.”  

Oral Roberts University:  Religious assemblies at the Tulsa, Oklahoma school typically generate enormous amounts of perspiration, as attendees become frenzied, writhing witnesses in the presence of the Almighty.  At the end of each service, worshippers wipe their faces with hand towels that are later cut into squares, laminated, and sold as “wet relics” at evangelical conferences around the country.  

Profits from these expensive collectibles are being used to fund construction of a Tramway to Heaven that will ascend from the school’s North Campus directly to the firmament (completion expected in time for the beginning of President Trump’s third term).   

College presidents, it’s time to stop sitting on your assets.  Get busy.  

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that legislators in Kansas “want to get rid of DEI offices, end diversity trainings, banish diversity statements, and censor how professors talk about race…in mandatory courses” (February 20th online).  

None of this is very surprising in the current political environment.  What IS raising eyebrows in the Sunflower State, however, is a recent decision by Wichita State University that will enable it to become the first school in the nation where it is legal to claim, “We Don’t See Color.”  

Commencing July 1st, 2026, WSU will only hire faculty, staff, and administrators — and only accept students — who can provide medical proof that they are color-blind. 

According to WSU President Richard Muma, “discrimination on the basis of skin color has been the scourge of humanity since the beginning of time, and WSU is committed to eliminating that scourge.  We realize that mandating color blindness on our campus will be a challenge, since only about 8% of all males — and less than 1% of all females — are color-blind.  But WSU embraces that challenge.  Color blindness is not a deficiency or an affliction, it’s a gift.  Color-sensitive people are Satan’s minions, and our institution will no longer be complicit in the evil they foist upon the world.  As our new school motto proclaims, ‘If you can see brown, yellow, black, or white, you better make sure to get out of OUR sight’.”

Amen, brother.