Month: February 2020

Remember Silent Sam, the monument to a Confederate soldier that caused such a stir on the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus that a decision was made to give the statue, along with a $2.5 million trust fund, to an organization known as the “Sons of Confederate Veterans”?  Well, a superior court judge has ordered the Sons to return the monument to the UNC system, whose Board of Governors now has to figure out what to do with this controversial piece of cultural plutonium (Richmond County Daily Journal online, Feb. 26).

Well, a solution may be at hand.  Sources close to the Board of Governors indicate that a plan is in the works to attach water wings and a high-intensity halogen lamp to Sam, so that he can be strategically placed at the epicenter of the notoriously treacherous Bermuda Triangle in the North Atlantic, where he will serve as a “beacon buoy” for marine and air traffic.

According to UNC Board Chairman Randy Ramsey, “it’s only fitting that a symbol of a devastating defeat for the South should be redeemed by deploying it to prevent future disasters.  Bobbing on the surface of the sea, serving as an ever-vigilant sentry, Silent Sam will help guide ship captains and jet pilots to safety for the next hundred years.  We may have lost the war, but we will not let the turbulent waters of the briny deep claim any more of our sons and daughters, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, or sharecropping status.”

At long last, it looks like Silent Sam will be protecting everyone. 

 

So here’s the deal: Watkins College of Art, a financially stressed institution in Nashville, plans to merge in Fall 2020 with Belmont University, a Christian school that is also located in Nashville (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 21).  

Not surprisingly, students and faculty at Watkins are worried about the merger’s implications for artistic freedom, given Belmont’s strong Christian identity.  To explore this issue, University Life reporter Todd Quandell sat down with a senior Belmont administrator for a candid interview.  The administrator asked not to be identified, and thus will be referred to as “X.”  Key excerpts from the conversation are presented below:

Quandell:  “Let’s cut to the chase.  Will nude models be allowed in class after the merger?”

X:  “Wow, you really do hit the ground running, don’t you?  Our Board of Trustees is debating this very question as we speak.  The problem is that many Belmont students come from highly sheltered backgrounds, and some have never seen a naked body, not even their own.  It might be traumatic for them if their first exposure to the unclad human form took place in an art class.  One solution might be trigger warnings for these courses, but a decision has yet to be made.”

Quandell:  “There are rumors circulating among Watkins students that the only portraits they will be permitted to paint for course credit are Madonna-and-child depictions.  Is that true?”

X:  “Absolutely not.  Students will also be able to submit portraits of Joseph, the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and lambs.  At Belmont we’re very big on lambs.  Our campus art museum has the largest collection of lamb paintings in the Northern Hemisphere.”

Quandell:  “What about Modern Art?  Will students be able to study the work of artists such as Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol?”

X:  “Picasso divorced his first wife, so he’s out.  And Pollock was an alcoholic, so the answer for him is ‘no’ as well.  Warhol was homosexual.  No Warhol.  No way.”

Quandell:  “You do know that most scholars believe that Michelangelo was probably gay?”

[X punches Quandell square in the face, knocking him off his chair.]

X:  “Take that back!”

Quandell:  “So I guess this means that the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe would also be out of bounds?”

[X grabs the folding chair he’s been sitting on and takes a home-run swing at Quandell, sending him sprawling across the floor.  There’s some blood.]

Quandell:  “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ on Mapplethorpe.”

X:  “That would be correct.”

Quandell:  “In addition to religious icons and lambs, what sorts of subjects do Belmont art students focus on?” 

X:  “Baskets of fruits and vegetables, mainly.  You know, still lifes.  And meadows.  Lots of meadows.  Of course, students must avoid provocative fruits such as overripe peaches or bananas at any stage of development.  Apples are nice.  Our students are very skilled at painting apples, and not just the traditional varieties like Red Delicious and McIntosh, but also the newer ones like Cosmic Crisp and SugarBee.  

Quandell:  “Impressive.”

X:  “We certainly think so.  Here, let me put a bandage on that head wound.  It’s still oozing a bit.”

University Life tips its hat to Todd Quandell for his intrepid reporting on this assignment.  

 

 

 

 

The ethics code of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) used to prohibit institutions from recruiting students who were enrolled in other colleges or universities.  In other words, you couldn’t engage in “poaching” — actively soliciting transfer students.  Last fall, NACAC removed this prohibition (The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 14). 

Now, all hell has broken loose, as admissions offices around the country develop customized approaches that target specific groups of students.  Consider the following emails that were sent to second-semester freshmen at three different schools in early February:

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TO:  Griffin LaFleck, Darmouth College 

Griffin, are you tired of freezing your ass off in Hanover, New Hampshire, pooping chunks of ice every time you sit down on the toilet?  Does it take so long for you and your Saturday night hook-up partner to shed your parka,  fleece-lined ear-flap winter hat, cable-knit sweater, flannel shirt, ski pants, thermal underwear, snow boots, and wool socks that you’re too exhausted to have sex once you’ve undressed?

If so, then consider transferring to Princeton University, the Ivy League school with the sultry climate and social ambiance of the Deep South.  Close your eyes as you sit on a bench on our magnificent campus, and you’ll swear that you’re surrounded by majestic plantations, fragrant magnolia trees, and bottomless pitchers of sweet tea.  Even in February, all you’ll need to wear are flip-flops, khaki shorts, and a T-shirt.  And be sure to ask our admissions staff about Naked Wednesdays, a Princeton undergraduate tradition that started in 1967!  Please join us…..and thaw out.

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TO:  Bobby Trakel, University of Alabama

You’re a Vermont native who thought it would be fun to attend a big-time football school where tailgating is a way of life on fall Saturdays.  But your poor math skills didn’t serve you very well, did they?  Those home football games only occupy about six days during the entire school year.  The rest of the time you’re still in….oh my God….ALABAMA!  How’s that workin’ out for you, buddy?  What’s it like living in a state where the nighttime lows in January are in the mid-80s, and you spend every evening dodging mosquitoes that are the size of U.S. military drones?  

Bobby, in the name of all that is good and holy, please transfer to Temple University in Philadelphia, where you can at least get a decent cheesesteak sub that doesn’t have caramelized skeeters mixed in with the grilled onions. We’ll even give you a bus voucher so you can travel to Penn State football games in the fall, if that’s what it takes to get you here.  

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TO:  Beatrice Rowflausen, Williams College

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.  Attend Williams, a small liberal arts school in the Berkshires, where you would discover the “real Beatrice” and write the first chapter of your coming-of-age novel that would become a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.  But then you arrived on campus and found that your fellow students were so, so weird, including all those white guys wearing blond dreadlocks.  They were even more self-absorbed than you.  The professors were equally strange; both the male AND female faculty members smoked pipes in class, and every course you took — including 19th-Century British Literature — required you to write a paper on climate change.  

Had enough?  Perhaps it’s time for you to take a look at the University of Alabama, where the students are as normal as ladybugs sittin’ on a picnic basket, the professors chew tobacco rather than smoke it, and the only “climate change” we care about is what happens when you turn on an air conditioner in Tuscaloosa in August.  C’mon down and pay us a visit, y’all!

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Streaming Alert:  Coming to HBO in 2021 — Admissions, the sequel to Mad Men.  

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