Month: September 2021

Colleges and universities across the nation were stunned yesterday when it was announced that consulting firms to higher education will soon be classified as Level I PARASITES — and a threat to public health — by the Centers for Disease Control.  

According to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, “we did not make this decision lightly, but we had no choice.  A parasite is an organism that lives in or on a host organism and obtains its nutrients at the expense of the host.  This is precisely what higher education consulting firms do.  They most closely resemble arthropods such as ticks, fleas, and lice, burrowing deep into the moist, fetid, germ-friendly crevices of a school’s organizational infrastructure for long periods of time, sucking out the institution’s discretionary financial resources.  

“What do colleges and universities get in return?  Generic diagnoses that are laughably primitive (‘Trust is low, communication is poor, silos are high’) and recommendations for change that are stupefyingly simplistic (‘Build trust, communicate better, use action verbs, HAVE A RETREAT!’).  

“And don’t get me started on firms that specialize in diversity training.  Dammit, there goes my acid reflux again!

“By the time a consulting firm is finished, all that’s left is an organizational husk — conference rooms filled with cynics, jargon-numbed zombies, and whiteboards hemorrhaging buzzwords (SYNERGY!) drawn with multi-colored dry-erase markers.  Behold the afterbirth of a newborn Vision Statement that puts an emphasis on ‘THE FUTURE’!  Crap, I just threw up on my blouse.  

“Once we get COVID under control, we’re going to take on these insidious ectoparasites.  Pfizer is working on both oral and anal vaccines for college presidents and provosts.  This is a battle we can’t afford to lose.”

In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jane Halonen and Dana Dunn offer advice on how to give written feedback to students without alienating them (September 10th online).  The overall suggestions the authors provide are valuable, but the examples they employ could be more pointed.  As a service to our readers, and with gratitude to Halonen and Dunn, University Life will now use the authors’ headings to illustrate their principles with a bit more punch. 

Explain your feedback style:  Let’s say that you’re one of those professors who prefer their students’ writing to be factually accurate.  In the current climate, where “my truth” is a phrase that many students view as a blank check, it’s important for them to know that such truth can represent the on-ramp to an assertion that is profoundly stupid.  It’s your responsibility to inform them that you will correct these assertions.  (“I hate to tell you this, Skippy, but Belgium was not one of the Thirteen Colonies.”)

Identify your quirks:  If you often use the term “dipwad” in your written feedback (“Hey, dipwad, a run-on sentence of 250 words is not OK.”), it’s a good idea to let students know this ahead of time.  Tell them not to take it personally.  

Emphasize WHY you’re giving students the feedback you’re giving them:  “Skippy, the reason I called you out for mistaking Belgium as one of the Thirteen Colonies is that you are a dipwad.”

Highlight what students have done well:  This is terrific advice.  Example:  “Tabitha, you looked really attractive in class today.  In fact, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you as I grade papers tonight, all alone in my king-size bed.  Thanks for being you.”

Limit corrections to the most important ones:  “Clyde, the assignment asked you to analyze the economic causes of the Franco-Prussian War.  You submitted a paper that discusses the process by which you assemble your NFL Fantasy Football team.  I’m confused.”

Ask students which kinds of critique will be most useful to them:  “Autumn, if I notice that you’ve engaged in wholesale plagiarism in your paper, do you want me to point that out, or would doing so make you feel uncomfortable?”  

Give students an opportunity to revise to recapture credit:  Once again, a great idea.  “Tabitha, now that I’ve finished reading your paper this evening, I must say it’s not very good.  Should we meet at Olive Garden for dinner tomorrow night to discuss what we can do about this?  My treat.”

Resist the urge to adopt current slang in your feedback:  Instead, use slang that you’re more familiar and comfortable with.  (“Hate to bug ya, daddy-o, but some of the grammar in your essay is less than groovy.  C’mon, hep cat.  Remove those cool shades and eyeball that prose one more time.”)

I can dig it, man.  Slip me five on the down side. 

 

TRUE FACT HEADLINE: “Harvard Will Move to Divest its Endowment from Fossil Fuels” (Harvard Crimson, September 9th online)

Well, not quite.

According to Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, what the school actually plans to do is divest itself of fossil faculty.

“The misunderstanding is all my fault,” says Bacow.  

“Here’s the problem we’re trying to address, and it’s a serious one.  Our aging, tenured professors are becoming increasingly cranky and expensive to maintain.  And when they talk, it sounds like their brains are filled with kettle corn.  Have you tried engaging Steven Pinker in a lucid conversation lately?  Good luck. 

“Well, Boston and Cambridge are teeming with bright, unemployed, PhD-bearing adjuncts who are more than willing to teach a 100-seat section of Renaissance Poetry for the price of a Fenway Frank.  We can’t in good conscience continue to spend Harvard’s limited resources on faculty from the Cretaceous Period.  So, beginning in January, 2022, the mandatory retirement age for our professors will be 65.  Will we get sued?  Hell, yeah.  But I’m sure Martin Luther King would be on our side.  We’re fighting for our principles here.

“As I said before, I take full responsibility for the confusion that has arisen.  What I meant to say in my formal announcement is that all of these terminated professors, 65 and older, will be given an opportunity to have themselves immediately converted into fossil fuel.  This ‘faculty fuel’ will then be used to provide emergency power to the Main Reading Room of Widener Library during storm-related power outages.  We intend to call this our “Legacy of Light” initiative, and it’s quite inspirational, when you stop and think about it. 

“Unfortunately, I garbled this message when briefing reporters a couple of days ago, resulting in the Crimson’s erroneous headline.  In my defense, I turned 70 in August.  Would you like some kettle corn?”

Today’s True Fact:  The University System of Georgia has not mandated the wearing of masks in classrooms (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 27th online).  

This is bad news for Professor Wendell McGlebben, who teaches a course on Faulkner and the Novel at the University of Georgia in Athens, but good news for his students, who are now flexing their negotiation biceps.

On the first day of class this semester, they presented McGlebben with a written list of demands that included the following:

— Eliminate the final exam

— Replace the required reading list of “The Sound and the Fury,” “As I Lay Dying,” and “Absalom, Absalom!” with “The Bridges of Madison County” (abridged version) and “To Kill a Mockingbird” (the movie)

—  Reduce the number of “reflection papers” from 8 to 2, and the length of these papers from 2 pages to 1 slogan, proverb, or aphorism

—  Award extra credit for attending class, and double-extra-credit for not texting during class

In exchange, the students promised that they would wear masks whenever they decided to come to class.

According to student representative Hanson “Skeeter” Blovell, a junior English major, “we all knew that we had some leverage going into this course.  Professor McGlebben is 78 years old and is missing a lung due to a botched emergency appendectomy at the Marietta Urgent Care Center in 2019.  He coughs a lot, and both his wife and his cat “Raspy” have severe asthma.  Need I say more?”

The professor agreed to the students’ terms, telling reporters that “a part of me has to admire the little bastards.  They saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.  I just hope our Bulldogs football team can do the same on the gridiron this fall.  And I’ll be honest: Faulkner bores the crap out of me.  Five pages in, and I’m nodding off.  The man is weird.”