Month: January 2021

TRUE FACT:  Dartmouth College plans to hire 15 faculty members of color over the next 5 years in order to diversify its professorial ranks (The Dartmouth, January 26th online).

According to Dartmouth President Philip Hanlon, “we had intended to add 16 faculty members of color, but then somebody in the room said, ‘Whoa, let’s not get caught up in the frenzy of the moment!’  That person was right. 

“Let me just affirm that 15 is a perfectly fine number.  It’s halfway between 10 and 20, and 20 is way too many.  Also, we don’t want to be insensitive to our faculty of no color, who often feel that they are invisible on a snow-covered campus that averages 68 inches of fluff stuff per year.  On more than one occasion a white professor has approached me as I cross the Dartmouth Green during a February blizzard and complained — through his or her frozen tears — that ‘you never see me, President Hanlon, you never actually SEE ME!’.    

“I usually respond, ‘Where is that voice coming from?’, and that should tell you something.  In the Arctic tundra that is Hanover, New Hampshire, we all suffer, regardless of race, creed, or color.”

TRUE FACT:  On Tuesday the College Board announced that it will stop offering SAT Subject Tests and the optional essay section of the SAT. 

The truly big news, however, is that beginning in January 2022, SAT questions will no longer have right or wrong answers.  According to College Board President Jeremy Singer, future versions of the test will focus on how students feel about the topics addressed in the questions, and “as we all know, feelings can’t be correct or incorrect — they just ARE.”

Mr. Singer provided an illustration:

“Rather than ask students to identify which one of several equations represents the Pythagorean Theorem, we’ll ask them if the Theorem makes them happy or sad, and why.  Or we might inform students that Pythagoras was a vegetarian, and then explore how their awareness of this fact influences their attitude towards the Theorem.  For example, does the Theorem now seem less ‘meaty’ to them?”

“Questions like these open the stained-glass window to a student’s soul in a way that can’t be approximated by traditional examinations obsessed with so-called ‘knowledge’ or ‘reasoning’.”

But will the new SAT be a better predictor of success in college than the old SAT?

“Haven’t got a clue,” says Singer.  “But I can tell you how I’ll feel if a lot of schools adopt the new SAT:  like a million bucks, baby, like a million bucks!”

 

In the aftermath of the notorious event that took place at the U. S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, the most crucial question facing our nation is what to call the event.  

To the surprise of virtually no one, Harvard University has taken the lead in addressing this challenge.  The school’s Department of Government is sponsoring a 4-day conference this week (January 13 — 16) in which scholars from across the country are debating the most appropriate word or phrase to characterize what happened in Washington, D. C. on January 6th.  According to Department Chairperson Jeffry Frieden, “once we name the problem, we can do something about it.”

The conference is exploring arguments for and against various labels, with participants voting for their favorites on Saturday.  Among the candidates being considered:

—  “Incident”:  Favored by economists and mathematicians; a neutral, non-partisan descriptor

—  “Insurrection”:  Currently trending; not to be confused with “Resurrection,” the first choice of a splinter group of Bible College faculty in Arkansas

—  “Erectile Dysfunction”:  Preferred by psychologists who see the event as a cry for help on the part of working-class white males experiencing “endowment issues”

—  “The Riot to End All Riots”:  Proposed by historians who study the Victorian era; these scholars become exceedingly nervous when observing couples arguing in a restaurant

—  “Mutiny”:  The choice of Oceanography professors who don’t understand what “mutiny” means

—  “Act of Sedition”:  Fans of the 1980s punk-Rastafarian band bearing this name claim the January 6th event closely resembles a raucous performance given by the group at the Sweat Stain Lounge in Brooklyn, NY in June 1987; police intervention was required

—  “Uprising”:  Many soil scientists believe this term best captures the miasma of the January 6th participants clawing their way out of the primordial ooze

—  “Political Flesh Performance Art”:  The choice of  nearly all postmodernists, many anthropologists, and Taylor Swift

—  “Devil Dance of the Deplorables”:  Hillary Clinton offered this suggestion during her keynote speech opening the conference; the phrase has been officially deemed “hurtful” by the Feelings Caucus of the American Sociological Association

The results of the conference vote will be announced at halftime of the Browns/Chiefs NFL playoff game on Sunday, January 17th on CBS.  President-elect Biden has promised to use the winning term or phrase in all of his public statements regarding the event in question. 

 

 

 

Least Surprising True Fact in North America:  The scandal-ridden University of Michigan has hired a consulting firm to help the school “change the culture of sexual misconduct surrounding numerous accused faculty members,” according to The Detroit News.  

What is raising eyebrows, however, is the no-nonsense approach taken by this firm, an approach signaled by the company’s name: Keep It in Your Pants, Inc.  

University Life reporter Skip Wardlow recently interviewed the firm’s founder and CEO, retired U. S. Army Brigadier General Ted “Titanium Butt” Stent.  Here is a transcript of the conversation:

UL:  “What’s the key message you try to communicate in your consulting and training?”

Stent:  “Just ‘keep it in your pants’.  It’s as simple as that, son.”

UL:  “And how exactly do you communicate that message?”

Stent:  “We get people together in a classroom, in groups of 20 or so, and give them a brief PowerPoint presentation.  The first slide contains a single sentence in bold and all CAPS: ‘KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS’.” 

UL:  “And then what?”

Stent:  “Well, since we never use the P-word in our work, we present a second slide that shows four numbered photos: a baseball cap (#1), an avocado (#2), a chipmunk (#3), and a penis (#4).  We ask people to write down the number that corresponds to the ‘it’ that was mentioned in the first slide.  We do this because we want to make sure that folks know what the ‘it’ is that men are supposed to keep in their pants.”

UL:  “Why don’t you just use the word ‘penis’ when you present the first slide?”

Stent:  “That word can be a trauma trigger for some people, and cause them to hyperventilate.”

UL:  “But can’t photo #4 produce the same reaction?”

Stent:  “You would think so, but it almost never does.  It’s the damnedest thing.  In any event, just to be safe, at every training session we have in attendance a nurse, a paramedic, an aromatherapist, and a certified Reiki specialist.”

UL:  “I see.  So what happens after you determine that everyone knows what ‘it’ refers to?”

Stent:  “We discuss the consequences of NOT keeping it in your pants.”

UL:  “How do you that?”

Stent:  “I place a carrot about six inches long on top of the table at the front of the room.  Then I take a piece of lead pipe out of my briefcase, raise the pipe over my head in my right hand, and come down on that carrot like a vengeful God high on PCP, screaming ‘I will smite thee, O Serpent of Satan!’  When pipe meets carrot, it produces a sound that you wouldn’t believe.  I’ve shattered more than my share of table tops over the past few years.”

UL:  “Holy crap!  How do people respond when they see that?”

Stent:  “A lot of the men throw up, but most of the females either clap or cheer.  Skip, there’s a whole bunch of angry womenfolk out there.”

NOTE:  University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel says that he anticipates “a significant culture change at the school in the coming months.  Listen carefully, and you’ll hear the buzz of zippers being soldered shut all over campus.”