Month: July 2021

The higher education community awoke this morning to stunning news: Princeton and Dartmouth are departing the Ivy League in order to join the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the home of powerhouse college football. 

Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber explained his school’s decision:  “We’ve always seen ourselves as more of a Southern school.  Our male faculty routinely wear white shoes, bow ties, and straw boaters to class, while our female professors have a fondness for hoop skirts with multiple petticoats.  The beverage of choice at University receptions is sweet tea.  Let’s face it, we have a lot more in common with Ole Miss than Yale.  Once we saw that Oklahoma and Texas were jumping to the SEC from the Big 12, we decided that the time was right for us.”

In contrast, Dartmouth’s decision was driven by a desire to broaden the education of its students.  As President Philip Hanlon put it, “many of our undergraduates don’t believe that places like Alabama actually exist.  In the future, when our football team travels to Tuscaloosa for away games, a chartered flight will transport every interested student to the contest.  Those who make the trip will receive one academic credit for participating in our study abroad program, as well as two foreign language credits. 

“We also want our student-athletes to encounter daunting physical challenges while in college, and the SEC offers those.  The average offensive lineman on our football team weighs 172 pounds, while the typical defensive lineman at an SEC school tips the scale at 493, just shy of a quarter-ton.  I’m sure our boys will learn something about themselves next season when they try to protect their quarterback from being sacked.”  

Tentative plans call for replacing Princeton and Dartmouth in the Ivy League with Phillips Exeter Academy and Deerfield Academy, two prestigious New England boarding schools.  Although neither school offers a bachelor’s degree, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow notes that “both institutions display the sort of commitment to academic excellence, elite networking, and Manifest Destiny that has characterized the Ivy League for generations.  And they always serve their cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.  That’s class, ladies and gentlemen.”

 

 

The Board of John Tyler Community College in Chester, Virginia has recommended that the school be renamed “Brightpoint” (The Progress-Index, July 8th online).   It turns out that John Tyler — the 10th President of the United States, for whom the college is named — was a slaveholder.  Uh-oh.

According to Dr. Edward Raspiller, President of the college, the proposed name evokes two powerful images that are central to the institution’s evolving mission: assisted living facilities for the elderly, and large, high-end appliances for the kitchen, laundry room, and deck. 

In Raspiller’s words, “in the coming decade we plan to reach out to our county’s senior-citizen population with a variety of  one-credit courses, such as ‘Napping’ and ‘Chewing’.  During focus groups at nursing homes around the state, we found that residents smiled broadly when consultants projected the word ‘Brightpoint’ on the screen.  In fairness, they also smiled broadly when the words ‘Pringles’, ‘tooth’, and ‘tapeworm‘ were displayed.  But ‘Brightpoint’ elicited the most intense response.  Folks said they would love to spend time in a place with that name.  

“The second plus for ‘Brightpoint’ is that it brings to mind a deluxe line of stoves, refrigerators, washer/dryer units, and barbecue grills.  In the Spring 2022 semester we will begin selling these items in the campus bookstore, in an attempt to offset reduced budget allocations to our school from those sons of bitches in the state legislature.  A free kitten will accompany each purchase of $300 or more.  Virginians love their felines.”  

“WHEN YOU TAKE A COURSE AT BRIGHTPOINT, YOU’RE MAKING THE RIGHT POINT!” 

“Our consulting firm tells me that I should say this every time I speak in public.  How does it sound?”

Terrific, Mr. President.  Absolutely terrific.   

Colleges and universities are approaching the speed of light in their race to establish high-profile administrative positions devoted to promoting diversity and inclusion within their institutions. 

Now, Yale University has taken this competition to the next level.  It has just created the position of Vice Provost for Integrating into Yale University the Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at Yale University (VPIYUAPDIYU).

According to Yale President Peter Salovey, “the need for this new position became clear when our recently appointed Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion complained that she was being treated as a token by other high-level administrators.  They seldom involved her in substantive decision-making, and she was never invited when the group got together for their Wednesday night bowling league or the ‘Blue Blazer Happy Hour’ at Applebee’s on the third Friday of every month during the academic year.     

“This type of isolation violates the core spirit of our diversity/inclusion initiatives, and it must cease.  Our new VPIYUAPDIYU, Professor Braden O’Leary, is the friendliest, most gregarious white guy you’ll ever meet, and his extensive social network throughout campus is unrivalled.  The Associate Provost will be in good hands with Braden.  She’ll receive more invitations to wine-and-cheese receptions than she’ll know what to do with.”  [O’Leary holds the Marriott Endowed Chair in Yale’s Hospitality and Tourism Department (formerly the Ph.D. Program in English).]

Yale is well-known for creating innovative administrative roles to meet emerging challenges in higher education.  In February 2021 it established the position of Assistant Dean for Chua Affairs.  The Assistant Dean’s sole responsibility is to keep Yale Law Professor Amy Chua — the controversial, photogenic author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother —  out of trouble and a safe distance away from “Dancing with the Stars.”  

 

On June 30th the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill voted 9-4 to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, a journalist who played a key role in developing The 1619 Project for The New York Times.

When Board Chair Richard Y. Stevens was asked by reporters to explain the controversial — and embarrassing — delay in awarding her tenure, he was refreshingly candid:

“Hey, this is North Carolina we’re talking about — we do dumb s**t all the time.  Remember back in 2016, when a state passed a law preventing transgender people from using bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity?  Yep, that was us. We can’t help ourselves.

“This time the blame lies squarely with my idiot son-in-law Terrence, the Board’s legal counsel.  Terrence told us that it was perfectly okay to discriminate against a person of color as long as that person was a woman.  Well, it turns out he was WRONG.  The North Carolina Attorney General says we can’t do that anymore.  Terrence should have known.  

“Why my daughter married this twit with a degree from Mount Airy Law School is beyond me.  Terrence also claimed that we could refuse to grant tenure to Ms. Hannah-Jones because she spelled ‘Nikole’ with a ‘k’ rather than a ‘c’.  He was wrong about that as well. 

“My daughter’s husband has a thing for Nicole Kidman, and was arrested in 2018 for repeatedly sending her packages of Carolina Pride Red Hot Links that contained a handwritten note saying ‘sizzle me’.  The guy is a loser and a dipwad, but it’s the BOARD that ends up taking the heat.  Please, God, don’t let my little girl have kids with this wingnut.”