Month: September 2019

From the September 14th New York Times:  The University of Alabama “is rewarding students who attend [home football] games — and stay until the fourth quarter” with priority access to tickets for the post-season.  Wait, there’s more.  “Alabama is…using location-tracking technology from students’ phones to see who skips out and who stays.”

On September 21st, this new policy almost resulted in a world-class disaster at Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium, where the Crimson Tide was playing the University of Southern Mississippi.  Here’s what happened, according to University of Alabama Police Chief John Hooks:

“We had a full house at Saturday’s game: 101,821 to be exact.  The students in attendance were afraid that if they left their seats to go to the bathroom, the tracking system would report that they had exited the stadium.  So, virtually every student wore a ‘stadium buddy’ that day, a device that enables you to urinate while staying in your seat.

“Over the course of the game, the stadium buddies of tens of thousands of students were filling up.  Did you know that urine is really high in nitrogen?  I didn’t.  Well, by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, Bryant-Denny Stadium was basically Ground Zero, a massive reservoir of volatile nitrogen just waiting to be ignited.  All it would have taken was a tiny leak from one of the containers, trickling a line of pee that encountered a bit of salt from a discarded box of popcorn or random potato chip.  The resulting chemical reaction would have been BLAMMO!!!

“I checked with one of our Physics professors, and she said that the explosion would have been visible from Minneapolis, and that the force of the blast would have made the Hiroshima cataclysm look like a butterfly sneeze. 

“We dodged a bullet last Saturday,” says Hooks.  “Actually, we dodged a lot more than a bullet.  It would have been the worst catastrophe in Alabama football since we lost to Notre Dame 37-6 in 1987.  We’ve got to change this attendance policy!”

Crimson Tide students appeared to take the near-calamity in stride.  When Dwayne “Turnstyle” Willis, a sophomore, heard the news while skateboarding across campus wearing his 24/7 stadium buddy, he simply flashed a big grin and exclaimed, “AWESOME!”

 

Uh-oh.  According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, “faculty members at Miami University [in Ohio] are protesting a proposed policy that would require employees to report their own criminal activity or that of their colleagues to the university’s lawyers…..failure to do so could mean disciplinary action, up to dismissal.”

If this weren’t bad enough, the Miami administration plans to extend the policy in 2020 to a variety of non-criminal faculty offenses, including the following:

—  leaving pee dribbles on toilet seats in campus bathrooms

—  putting too much text into PowerPoint lecture slides

—  failing to clap when the applause sign is lit during Presidential addresses to the faculty

—  encouraging adjunct faculty to seek higher pay and better working conditions

—  pouring an excessive amount of Thousand Island dressing on your salad during lunch in the faculty dining room; taking a pat of butter but not using it

—  nodding off at department meetings in the midst of discussions of course re-numbering

—  delivering course lectures in bathrobe and slippers 

—  using the same multiple-choice questions on exams for three consecutive semesters

—  being “generally annoying” or “weird”

—  mouthing the words to the Star-Spangled Banner, rather than actually singing them, prior to campus sporting events

—  promising to bring cocktail shrimp, hot wings, and recreational marijuana to the department Christmas party, but not following through

—  putting chewing gum and French fries in the paper-only recycling bin outside of your office

—  frowning or scowling at colleagues who greet you as you walk across campus

—  not erasing the white board at the end of class

—  erasing the white board with your tongue at the end of class

—  stating or implying that Michel Foucault has had a positive influence on academic discourse

—  telling students that the “real Miami University” is in Florida, and that they’d be better off attending school there

—  taking the floor at a General Faculty Meeting under the pretense of asking a question, and then proceeding to give a speech about an administrative decision 15 years ago that you’re still angry about

According to Miami U. Police Chief Garrett “Buzz” Saffron, the list of non-criminal offenses will be updated every six months starting in June 2020.  As he put it, “people shouldn’t think of this as some ‘Big Brother’ type of policy.  What we’re aiming for here is a ‘We Are Family’ vibe — loving but watchful.”

Somewhere, Sister Sledge is smiling.

 

Yes, it’s true: For over a decade the University of Maryland at College Park has sent incoming freshmen a welcome box that includes a container of Old Bay seasoning and a crab mallet.

Overall, the program has been a success, but occasionally there have been missteps, according to Dining Services spokesperson Bart Hipple: “In 2016 we thought it would be a nice touch to put a steamed hard shell crab in the box.  Unfortunately, the boxes were assembled three weeks before they were mailed, so the students received crabs that were not, to put it mildly, ‘digestion friendly’.  The aroma the students encountered when they opened the box should have tipped them off, but not all of them were aware that a cooked hard shell crab shouldn’t smell like a pit latrine in Calcutta during cholera season.  We documented about 400 cases of food poisoning around the country that could be traced to the welcome boxes.  Trust me, it wasn’t a fun summer for Dining Services. 

“The following year, 2017, we tried to regroup by placing a sedated live crab in the box, along with instructions on how to steam it.  The problem was that we didn’t realize Maryland blue crabs become REALLY agitated when they’re confined in a small space for an extended period, regardless of how much you’ve drugged them.  When the boxes were opened, these feisty little crustaceans came out fighting!  Most of the injuries to students were minor — scratches and small puncture wounds — but at least five students lost one or more fingers to a particularly strong set of pincers. 

“Well, that ended the crab-inclusion experiment.  We’ve returned to just giving students the Old Bay and the mallet.  Of course, a few of the more adventurous kids can always be counted on to use their bong to smoke the seasoning after lacing it with oregano and powdered kale, but I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t produce much of a high, and it leaves your throat incredibly raw.  Now we include a sticker on the Old Bay container warning folks not to do this.”

Note to Mom and Dad: It’s probably a good idea to be in the room when your offspring open their welcome box from the University of Maryland.  It might be your last opportunity to offer parental guidance before your child heads to college.  

As the noted humorist Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945) once observed, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who get really upset when a colleague hits Reply All in response to a message from a university administrator to the faculty as a whole, and those who take the colleague’s mistake in stride. 

Okay, maybe it wasn’t Robert Benchley who observed this.  But you get the point. 

In any event, a typical episode of RRA (Reckless Reply All) goes something like this:

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September 3, 2019, 8:45 am

FROM:  Fleming Helken, Dean of Arts & Sciences

TO:  Arts & Sciences Faculty

SUBJECT:  Dry-Erase Markers

Just a reminder that the deadline for submitting purchase orders for dry-erase markers for the Spring 2020 semester is today, September 3rd.  Please send your request electronically using Form DEM217.  You must submit a separate request for each color you would like to receive.  In addition to sending your request to the Purchasing Office, please copy the Provost and Campus Police in your email.  Thank you, and don’t forget that National Don’t-Sniff-Your-Marker Day is September 25th.  A rally will be held on the campus quadrangle at 11:00 am featuring a performance by TCU’s own Clear Nostril Jug Band.

Have a nice day, and best wishes for a productive Fall semester. 

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September 3, 9:02 am

FROM: Randall Yenz-Thompson, Assistant Professor of Romance Languages

TO:  Fleming Helken; Arts & Sciences Faculty

SUBJECT:  Re: Dry-Erase Markers

Is there any chance you could extend the marker deadline?  Last night our Bichon Frise, Stefan, developed a nasty abscess on his left hip.  It’s inflamed and quite painful, which you quickly discover if you press on it with your thumb.  I’m with him now at the animal hospital, and will probably be here until late in the evening.  The veterinarian says that she will need to lance the abscess to get all the pus out, and I want to stay by Stefan’s side until he wakes up in the recovery room.  As you can imagine, I’m in no shape, psychologically, to submit a dry-erase-marker purchase order today.  I promise to do it the first thing tomorrow morning.  Thanks so much, and please pray for Stefan.  

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In recognition of how annoying incidents like this can be, Texas Christian University has become the first school in the country to establish a “Progessive Discipline System” for RRA offenders. 

Here’s how it works:

1st offense:  A note is added to the faculty member’s annual performance review by the chair. 

2nd offense:  The Human Resources Department is notified and the offender is required to participate in a Saturday morning training session on Email Etiquette offered by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. 

3rd offense:  The faculty member must attend a Scared Straight session sponsored by Campus Police.  In the session, a rehabilitated RRA offender engages in some “attitude adjustment” with the professor in question: “You think this is a joke, punk?  Don’t look away from me!  What makes you think that anybody at this school gives a good goddamn about your lame-ass bee-shawn free-zay oozing pus from a bump on his butt?  Is that thing even a real dog, or just a big ol’ puff ball of cotton you use to shine your sports car? I told you, ‘DON’T LOOK AWAY FROM ME!’  And stop crying, or I’ll smack you upside your head like Aaron Judge hitting a fastball with a two-by-four!”

4th offense:  The faculty member will not be considered for a merit raise or cost-of-living salary increase for the coming academic year.

5th offense:  The offender’s email privileges at TCU will be suspended for 3 months. 

6th offense:  Public shaming on the TCU campus quad.  The faculty member is branded with a scarlet RRA on his or her forehead. 

7th offense:  Revocation of tenure and banishment to a local for-profit college specializing in cosmetology and long-distance trucking. 

Although these measures may seem harsh to some, a TCU spokesperson indicates that there is broad support for them among the faculty.  Indeed, the spokesperson asserts that “one professor even told me, ‘I can forgive a sexual innuendo or two directed at a good-looking undergraduate a lot more readily than I can condone the lack of attention to detail that leads to clicking on Reply All when you shouldn’t’.”

Will other schools follow TCU’s approach?  University Life will keep you posted.