Month: January 2020

Yep, it’s true.  The first time a student cheats in Introduction to Computer Science, a course taught by Harvard Professor David Malan, the offender has 72 hours to confess the crime.  Doing so will result in the student flunking the assignment, but the student will not be subject to further disciplinary action for the misdeed.  (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 23 online)

A version of the professor’s policy has now been adopted outside of the classroom in Elkins, West Virginia.  According to Elkins Police Chief Lemuel “Lum” Turley, “If you shoot someone in our city and turn yourself in within 24 hours, we will not arrest you, and you will not be prosecuted.  Of course, you will be required to apologize to the victim’s next of kin.  This policy only applies to first-time shooters.”

Initiated on January 1st, 2020, the policy has had mixed results.  On the one hand, the number of homicides in Elkins has increased from 2 in all of 2019 to 117 in January 2020 alone.  “Apparently, this town is home to a lot of folks who are mighty pissed off,” Turley observes.  “Nearly all of the January shootings were carried out by wives who were sick and tired of being treated poorly by their husbands.  To be honest, I can’t blame the ladies.  Elkins men are notorious for being nastier than a bunch of turkey buzzards with an ass rash.  I’m confident that the number of domestic-violence calls we’ll get in 2020 involving female victims will show a large drop compared with 2019, and that’s a good thing — a damn good thing!  And I can say for sure that I’m a much better husband to my wife Thelma these days, ever since she started keeping a revolver inside her Spanx and enrolled in that firearms training class over in Parsons.”

Addendum:  Hallmark reports that sales of Valentine’s Day cards “for her” have gone up 876% in Elkins this year, the biggest increase of any city in the nation.   

Uh-oh.  A former chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Drexel University has been arrested after spending nearly $200,000 in research-grant funds at strip clubs and sports bars, as well as on meals and iTunes.  No joke. 

Defending financial wrongdoing of this magnitude would seem to be an impossible task, but at least one high-profile source of support for the miscreant professor has emerged.  On Wednesday, ABET, the global accreditor of college and university programs in fields such as computing and engineering, issued a public statement urging the district attorney in this case to “cut the professor some slack,” and offered the following justification:

“ECE students are legendary for being obsessed with studying during their undergraduate and graduate years.  During that period they do not engage in the types of recreational pursuits enjoyed by their non-ECE peers.  On average, ECE majors do not lose their virginity until the age of 41, have no experience with alcohol beyond an occasional Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and have never gone to a movie. 

“Virtually none of them have dated, and they have no concept of popular music.  Most think that Beyoncé is the brand name of a fabric softener, and that Bruno Mars is ‘Bruno, Mars’, the capital city of a planet in our solar system.  Their diet consists almost exclusively of Ramen Noodles, black coffee, and Twizzlers.  An astonishingly high percentage of these folks have absolutely no idea of how human reproduction takes place.

“With these facts in mind, is it any wonder that a small number of ECE professors go rogue when they eventually become aware of all the temptations that the rest of us have been lucky enough to encounter much earlier in our lives?  The Drexel professor in this case is 57 years old. Is it too much to ask, ‘When will his time for happiness come?’  A $100 bill tucked into the thong of a pole dancer in South Philly every now and then would seem to be a small price to pay for an ECE professor’s lifelong dedication to his career.”

ABET may have a point.  

Last fall the Board of Trustees at Purdue University initiated a policy that prohibits its faculty, staff, and students from betting on sporting events in which a Purdue team participates.  No joke. 

Not surprisingly, Purdue’s ability to effectively enforce this policy has been questioned.  And now the gambling industry has taken its boldest step yet to separate college professors from their wages.  Beginning on March 1st, faculty across the country will be able to place bets on Tenure and Promotion applications at their school.  

According to Sonny “Sweetmeat” Credenza, Director of Gaming Operations at Bellagio Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, gamblers will be able to bet on the success or failure of a candidate’s application at multiple levels: department, academic division (e.g., Arts & Sciences), Dean, university-wide committee, Provost, and President.  “The beauty of the system,” says Credenza, “is that you’ll be able to bet in favor of a candidate at one level, and against that same candidate at a higher level.  Our professional oddsmakers are  thoroughly trained in using regression analysis to take into account scholarly productivity, teaching performance, service to the school, race, gender identity, national origin, post-modernist leanings, institutional culture, and other pertinent factors when establishing betting lines.  We’ll provide customers with briefing sheets on every candidate at their college or university.  A well-informed gambler is a happy gambler!

“One exciting side effect of T & P betting is that it promises to generate heightened interest across the campus in the overall Tenure and Promotion process.  Typically, Professor Jones in Political Science could care less if Professor Turdball in Mechanical Engineering gets tenure or not.  But, trust me, on March 1st he’ll start caring big-time if he has skin in the game!  Talk about March Madness!  And 20% of all casino T & P profits will go back to the schools to invest as they wish.  Do I hear the phrase ‘win-win’?”  

When a reporter commented that “things could get awkward if you bet against a colleague you know personally,” Credenza quickly responded, “that’s your problem, not our problem.  But a little common sense can go a long way.  For example, if you score a big hit, don’t be a d**k and go out and buy a Porsche 911 the day after it’s announced that your colleague has been turned down for tenure.  That colleague might suspect that the two events are related.

“Look, we’ve taken a tedious, time-consuming faculty-review process that only the candidates and their significant others used to care about, and transformed it into a data-driven Mardi Gras that will engage the whole campus.  What’s not to love?”

One can only hope that the Board of Trustees at Purdue will agree. 

The University of Wisconsin at Madison experienced some diversity turbulence last fall when its homecoming committee produced a promotional video that “showed students — almost all of them white — cheering at football games, eating pizza, dancing, and singing a cappella” (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 2, 2020).

Unfortunately, the Badgers can’t seem to get out of their own way.  On Monday, it was revealed that a recruitment brochure devoted to the University’s undergraduate major in Cheese Studies only displayed photos of American cheese slices that were white or orange.  

“This is an outrage,” claims Wenona Stemwinder, co-chair of the Student Dairy Coalition, an advocacy group on campus that addresses cow-related issues.  “Couldn’t the University’s PR Department have put together a brochure that more fully reflects the incredibly rich tapestry of cheese in today’s world?  Let’s face it, a slab of American white cheese is basically a Ku Klux Klan robe in edible form.  And what says “I love Donald Trump” more than orange cheese?

“Why couldn’t there have been at least one photo of a wedge of bleu cheese, or was this cheese’s mixed color deemed to be too multi-racial for our uptight University Administration?  And what about Velveeta and Cheez Whiz?  Are those varieties too ‘low-class’ for our snooty campus?  Hell, people in this state inhale fried cheese curds, the most disgusting food on the planet!  

“Of course, a photo of Swiss cheese would have been out of the question, since the holes might remind us of the frayed social fabric that deepening economic inequality has wrought upon our nation.  When will the Cheese Studies major at the University of Wisconsin begin pursuing a path of social justice, rather than continuing to serve as an instrument of oppression?”

The Chancellor’s office at the University has not responded in detail to the recent controversy, but it did release a statement on Tuesday stating that “the University of Wisconsin at Madison is committed to offering a Cheese Studies major that welcomes all students who wish to utilize their passion for cheese as a means of advancing the public interest.  Access to high-quality cheese products should be everyone’s birthright, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin.”

Amen to that, and may the Havarti be with you.