Month: November 2021

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay, University of Pennsylvania Professor Jonathan Zimmerman states that “I’ll retire when my institution pledges to hire a full-time, tenure-track professor in my place” (November 8th online).  

Dr. Zimmerman is the latest in a long line of college faculty who have offered to “go emeritus” in exchange for a specific concession from the administration.  Here’s a sampling of some of the more notable episodes, and how they turned out:

Gerald McTillis, College of William and Mary, 1807:  Said he would retire if given the opportunity to engage in a single-shot duel with the chairman of his department.  McTillis had accused the chair of assigning him 7:00 am classes, 5 days a week, for over 35 years. Outcome:  Professor McTillis passed away suddenly, but not unexpectedly, on May 27, 1807.

Spencer Woburn, Cornell University, 1891:  Would not retire unless the names of the four members of the Tenure & Promotion Committee whose negative votes prevented him from being promoted to full professor in 1880 were made public.  Outcome:  Request denied.  Curiously, between 1892 and 1894, all seven members of the 1880 T & P Committee disappeared without a trace.  For the next several years visitors often claimed that the barn on Professor Woburn’s farm “smelled funny.”

Celeste Wiggins-Talbot, Gettysburg College, 1937:  Demanded that Professor Navin Teasdale be blindfolded whenever he was on campus.  Wiggins-Talbot claimed that Teasdale stared at her breasts incessantly during department meetings, refusing to make eye contact.  “I don’t want the next generation of female professors at Gettysburg to encounter the same boorish behavior that I did,” she said.  Outcome:  A compromise was reached, which stipulated that Teasdale would never be permitted to have cataract surgery, even if he needed it. 

Maynard Nesbitt, University of Mississippi, 1952:  Promised to forgo his school-funded pension if the University agreed to show the film “Birth of a Nation” at freshman orientation every year, with Nesbitt coming out of retirement to give a post-screening lecture entitled, “D. W. Griffith: The Persecuted Prophet.”  Outcome:  Proposal rejected, by a 14-11 vote of the Board of Trustees. 

Gretchen Harvesta, Smith College, 2016:  Refused to retire until the school’s Business Office reimbursed her for a 2009 lunch she had at Chick-fil-A in the Charlotte International Airport, where she had a layover on the way back from a research conference in Puerto Rico.  A valid receipt for the meal had been submitted by Harvesta.  Outcome:  Request denied, due to Chick-fil-A’s public opposition to same-sex marriage.  The denial noted that the airport’s food court had an easily accessible McDonald’s, which also served a chicken sandwich.   

Percy Oddson, Emory University, 2018:  Oddson attempted to take a University-owned, window-mounted air conditioner out of his office when he vacated the premises upon retirement.  “Toby and I share a lot of memories, and even more secrets,” he asserted when apprehended by Campus Police in the parking lot.  “We should be together.”  Outcome:  Professor Oddson was admitted to DeKalb County Mental Hospital, where he currently resides.

NOTE:  You can visit Dr. Oddson at DeKalb from 2 to 4 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.  He enjoys doing crossword and jigsaw puzzles with family and friends, and collecting photographs of vintage air conditioners. 

 

TRUE FACT:  A consulting architect recently resigned from the Design Review Committee at the University of California at Santa Barbara after the school announced plans to erect a 1.68-million-square-foot dormitory in which 94% of its single-occupancy rooms would have no windows.  According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the building “would be one of the densest residential-housing units on the planet” (November 12th, p. 8).

An early hint that something might be amiss with the proposed facility was the fact that the architectural firm hired for the project, NanoSpace, also designs poultry enclosures for Perdue Farms, one of the largest chicken-processing companies in North America.

NanoSpace Managing Partner, Van Von Vindervun, acknowledges that this is the firm’s first venture into student housing: “The way we see it, the only real difference between a chicken and a college student is that one has feathers and the other doesn’t.  They both happen to be bipeds and hopelessly stupid, and neither is bothered all that much by standing around in its own excrement, especially when drugged.  

“All we really have to do is figure out how to give students enough space in their living quarters to hunch over smartphones.  That’s not exactly an intimidating architectural challenge.

“And just for the record, exit interviews indicate that OSHA only received five complaints in 2020 from chickens residing in Perdue facilities designed by NanoSpace. We’re proud of that.”

As you should be.  

TO:  All Faculty, Students, and Staff

RE:  I’m Sorry

I’m not sure what possessed me last week to show a 1952 episode of Amos ‘n’ Andy to students in my course on “Black Americans on Network TV in the Early 1950s.”  Perhaps it was because I was teaching a course on “Black Americans on Network TV in the Early 1950s.”

In any event, it is now clear that my decision has ignited a firestorm of controversy on campus.  Accordingly, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the following groups:

—  The American Gem Society, which is not pleased that Sapphire, the wife of Kingfish, is portrayed in the episode as being somewhat strident and shrewish.  This has depressed sales of sapphire jewelry across the country.  

—  The National Mackerel Association, which objects to the episode’s depiction of Kingfish (aka George Stevens) as someone who is constantly hatching get-rich-quick schemes.  In reality, king mackerels (aka kingfish) are famous in the marine community for their integrity and honesty, second only to blue marlin.    

— Uber and Lyft Drivers, who correctly note that Amos’s occupation in the series is that of taxicab driver, with no mention ever being made of Uber or Lyft transportation services.   Although it is true that neither Uber nor Lyft existed in 1952, that’s a poor excuse for the writers not anticipating that they would exist in the future. 

—  The American Bar Association, which is upset that the only lawyer featured in the episode — Algonquin J. Calhoun — is black.  As ABA President Reginald Turner informed me in a registered letter, “the great majority of attorneys in the United States in 1952 were white.  An impressionable white child who watches this episode might wonder, ‘are there any lawyers out there who look like me?  I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore.  I’d rather sell car insurance for a living, or just kill my parents and live on what I inherit’.”

— The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE), which is appalled at the failure of the Mystic Knights of the Sea, the fraternal group Amos and Andy belong to, to faithfully observe Robert’s Rules of Order during their meetings.  “Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t,” observes BPOE Board Chairman James McQuillan.  “It makes all of us look bad.”

— The Mothers-in-Law Congress of North America, which maintains that Americans’ negative view of mothers-in-law can be traced back to the character of Mama, Kingfish’s nemesis on the show.  As Congress President Edna Yentsin put it, “Mama was totally justified in being highly critical of her son-in-law, given those get-rich-quick schemes he was always hatching.”

—  The American Kennel Club, which claims that canines rarely appear on Amos ‘n’ Andy.  As AKC President Dennis Sprung yelled at me over the phone, “it’s one thing to have a TV show with no cats.  Cats suck.  But to have no dogs, not even strays?  That’s downright un-American.  Shame on Amos ‘n’ Andy, and shame on you for exposing students to this anti-pooch propaganda.  Somewhere, a bichon is crying alone in its crate, you bastard.”

If I have failed to apologize to anyone I should have, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Dr. Terrance Nasely-Smythe 

Professor of Cultural Anthropology