Month: October 2018

Writing a credible recommendation letter for a student is a time-consuming endeavor, one that can easily suck up the better part of an afternoon that could otherwise be devoted to watching videos of NCAA Division I football coaches trying not to laugh when using the words “student-athlete” in a sentence.   That’s why many professors undoubtedly reacted with a bit of wistful envy when the story broke recently that two University of Michigan faculty members had declined, for political reasons, to write recommendations for students who desired to study in Israel.  “Politics, schmolotics, those two jokers just wanted to reclaim a precious part of their workday!”

The ensuing controversy over the professors’ actions has brought to light a host of reports on strategies that instructors have employed to lighten their letter-writing burden.  Here are three of the more provocative ones:

—  Grayson Orskhp (pronounced “Orskhp”), Associate Professor of Management at the University of Arkansas, refuses to write recommendations for anyone applying to an Ivy League graduate school.  As a high school senior, Orskhp had applied to all 8 Ivy League institutions, and was turned down by every one.  (Harvard’s rejection letter began, “We’re astounded that you actually thought we might accept you.”) 

Orskhp now carries a grudge. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to send any of my top students there.  Those elitist snoots at ‘Ah-vahd’ and the other status pits can rot….in….hell, because that’s exactly what I’m doing here in Fayetteville.   Have you ever tried to get a decent bagel or slice of pizza in this town?  I’m not even sure they know the difference between the two.”

—  At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Critical Studies Professor Lynette Haven-Poultice will only write recommendations for direct descendants of postmodernist icon Michel Foucault.  When informed by a University Life reporter that Foucault has no direct descendants, Haven-Poultice responded, “that is not my problem.  Do not try to construct it as my problem….or as Foucault’s problem, for that matter.  It was his decision to reproduce or not, not the state’s.  You disgust me.  Why don’t you move to Fayetteville and marry your cousin?  And there is nothing wrong with doing that, by the way.  In-house intersectionality should not be suppressed.”

—  Blake Crull, a Biology professor at the University of Tulsa, will only write recommendation letters in French.  “It’s the world’s most beautiful language, is it not?  Compare the phrases “Je t’aime, mon amour” and “pigs in a blanket.”  Which one is more inspired, more transcendent?  When riding a Metro train in Paris stuffed with sweating natives at rush hour, which phrase is more likely to help your senses escape the under-deodorized, overly perfumed locked box in which you are trapped?  I rest my case.  Or should I say, ‘Je repose mon cas’?”

Oui! Un millier de fois, oui!

The Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carol Folt, apologized recently for the school’s role in slavery during a speech at an event celebrating UNC’s 225th birthday.  Referring to slavery’s “profound injustices,” she reaffirmed the “university’s commitment to facing squarely and working to right the wrongs of history.”

So far, so good.

But then something happened.

From beneath her ceremonial robes the Chancellor brought forth a basketball and began bouncing it — very slowly — while continuing to talk. 

Thump……thump……thump……

As the audience sat, slack-jawed, she proclaimed:

“And speaking of profound injustices, I want to apologize for the failure of the UNC men’s basketball team to win the NCAA championship in 2018.  We won it all in 2017, and there is no excuse — absolutely none — for not doing the same in 2018.  I understand the hurt and rage felt by everyone in Tar Heel Nation, a community that extends far beyond the boundaries of our state.  Your pain is deep, and for the older alumni who passed away in the weeks following this year’s tournament, the agony will be eternal.

“Today, I pledge to you, in the name of beloved coach Dean Smith and all that is sacred, that UNC will not be denied in 2019.  We shall return to glory and honor our school’s heritage.  Tar Heel Nation will rise again, and the North will quake in fear as we march over scorched Yankee soil toward the NCAA finals in Minneapolis in April.  So help me God.”

Dr. Folt proceeded to snatch the microphone from its stand, hold it parallel to the floor, and then drop it.  She next pulled a flute from her sleeve and began playing an unrecognizable but catchy melody as she walked off the stage and out of the building.  Entranced, a small group of pigeons and squirrels followed the Chancellor back to her office.

The next day, University officials announced that in early September Dr. Folt had started taking a powerful medication, prescribed by her doctor, for an acute sinus condition, and that the dosage level now needed to be adjusted.

On a related note, UNC men’s basketball coach Roy Williams informed  reporters yesterday that the team’s fall practices had been going “really, really well.”

Central Michigan University scored some major-league publicity recently when a geology professor at the school determined that a 22-lb. rock serving as a doorstop on a farm in Edmore, Michigan was actually a meteorite estimated to be worth $100,000 (no joke).

Not to be outdone, Western Michigan University, a fierce rival of CMU, announced less than 48 hours later that a 71–lb. meteorite had been found on its campus next to a dumpster outside of the dining hall.  Unfortunately, subsequent analysis revealed that the object in question was not a meteorite; it was Economics Professor Harold J. Clowfeffer.

The 87-year-old faculty member had apparently wandered into the cafeteria’s walk-in fruit locker, an industrial-strength dehydrator that was used to prepared dried strawberries for Buckin’ Bronco Granola, a popular breakfast treat named after the WMU mascot.  Failing to notice that Dr. Clowfeffer had entered the dehydrator, a WMU food-service employee closed the door and turned the dial to “Maximum Shrinkage.”

The next morning, the Professor was mistaken for a freeze-dried eggplant that had gone bad and was placed next to the dumpster.  Later that day, a 1st-year geology graduate student on academic probation stumbled upon Dr. Clowfeffer and excitedly made the incorrect identification. 

Once WMU’s media relations office was notified of the discovery, the University’s PR machine shifted into high gear, eager to displace the trending news story that focused on Central Michigan’s puny “pebble.” 

According to an anonymous source in the WMU Geology Department, the first clue that something was amiss came when “our research team discovered that this supposed meteorite appeared to be frowning, and was wearing eyeglasses.”

WMU President Edward Montgomery has expressed deep regret over the incident, and promised that Buckin’ Bronco Granola will no longer be served at the school.  “It’s the least we can do.”

For her part, the professor’s wife, Blanche, is just happy to know what became of her husband.  “When he didn’t come home on Thursday, I called every strip club in Kalamazoo — he was a regular — but no one had seen him.  Now I take comfort in the fact that he’s in a much better place — his beloved Japanese rock garden in our back yard.”

What do you do with a tenured faculty member who behaves badly?  That’s the question explored in a recent online Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled, “In a World of Tenure and Promotion, Demotion is a Murkier Matter.”  One can almost hear ominous organ music from Phantom of the Opera playing in the background.

And when it comes to murk, there are few challenges as daunting as dealing with professors who are just plain odd.  Consider the following:

—  Two months after suffering a concussion while playing touch football with graduate students, Bucknell University Mathematics Professor Elwood Stanchion began denying the existence of both long division and any number greater than 14.  He also claimed that the “equals” sign (=) was a Satanic symbol associated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Eventually, these beliefs began to interfere with his teaching.  (“He once threw a whiteboard eraser at me when I told him I was 19 years old,” says sophomore Molly Timmons.  “And I am 19, I really am!”) 

Following a semester’s worth of awkward classroom interactions, the Provost created a job for Stanchion: overseeing the library’s card-catalog operations.  Bucknell had not used the card-catalog system since 1993, and had relocated all of its cabinets — filled with hundreds of thousands of brittle, yellowed index cards — to a storage area in the library’s basement.

According to the Provost, “things have worked out a lot better than I thought they would.  Elwood fits in pretty well over there.  I think he’s happy.”

—  When his appeal of a $25 campus parking ticket at Ramapo College of New Jersey was denied in February 2018, Chemistry Professor Rufus Phlox stopped speaking.  He now stands silently at the front of the room for the full 75 minutes of every class session, holding a cardboard sign above his head that says, “Ramapo owes me $25.”  Enrolled students no longer show up for his courses, but the professor’s attendance record remains perfect.

Phlox’s attorney indicates that his client is currently negotiating with the College’s administration over the matter.  “We’ve offered to settle for $15, but Ramapo has been holding fast at $17.50 for the past three weeks.  We have another meeting scheduled for early November, when I hope further progress will be made.  Of course, I’m the one doing all the talking in there.”

—  Finally, there is Gretchen Hedley-Yoof, Professor of History at Auburn University.  Mired in a dispute with the Dean of Arts & Sciences over a classroom re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings that took place in her course, in which five undergraduates suffered severe pole-axe wounds, Hedley-Woof took provocative action last week.  She hijacked a group of high-school seniors and parents who were waiting for a student assistant to escort them on a campus tour.  She led them across the quad to the Dean’s office, where they stood outside his door while Hedley-Yoof repeatedly screamed, “this man sucks, this school sucks, and all y’all should just go to the University of Alabama, not this guano-filled hole!”

The Dean has announced that Hedley-Yoof will not receive a merit-pay increase in 2019, and her full-professor discount at the faculty dining room has been suspended. 

Sometimes, a Dean’s gotta do what a Dean’s gotta do.