Month: December 2021

In a decision yesterday that stunned everyone except those familiar with the organization, the NCAA announced that “nothing, not even COVID carnage, will stop the College Football Playoff from being held on December 31st and January 10th.”

According to NCAA President Mark Emmert, “there is simply too much TV money tied up in the Playoff to allow our fear of COVID to cancel it.  We’ve made a commitment to ESPN, and we’re going to honor it. 

“In World War II, we knew that our nation’s young men would be at risk when we sent them overseas to do battle.  But we did it anyway, because the future of the free world was at stake.  The same goes for the College Football Playoff.  I think all Americans would agree that a world without a National Champion that is determined on the gridiron is not a world worth living in.  The ‘Greatest Generation’ in the United States stepped up to the plate 70 years ago, and now a new generation — this time, of student-athlete gladiators — is being asked to take their place. 

“Some of them may fall to the virus as they serve our country, but they will fall in glory.  I’m proud to announce that any player who succumbs to COVID during the Playoff — or within two weeks following the National Championship game — will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, as a result of an agreement reached last night between the NCAA, ESPN, and the U. S. Department of the Army.

“When high-revenue college sports and a pandemic collide, they bring out the best in all of us.”

It’s been a tough year for the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  First there was the Nikole Hannah-Jones affair, and now controversy is swirling around the sketchy process the Board used in recently voting to approve a self-described “outspoken conservative” as UNC’s new Provost (NC Policy Watch, December 14th online).

One might ask:  How did the UNC Board become such a dumpster fire?   Well, genetics researcher Duncan Squesker believes he has the answer:  10 of the Board’s 13 members are direct descendants of either the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges. 

Squesker, a Biology Professor at Duke University, obtained saliva samples from coffee mugs left on the conference table after a meeting of the Board in early December.  He sent the samples to Ancestry.com, which linked 6 of the Board members to the Marx family, and 4 to the Stooges (2 to Moe, 1 to Shemp, and 1 to Larry).  

“What we’ve got here is a Board of Trustees that is basically a clown car,” says Squesker.  “No one should be surprised if their decision making resembles that of a mob of meerkats on crack.”

For his part, Board Chair David Boliek has vehemently denied that any Marx or Stooge blood runs through his veins, and noted, “just for the record, please be informed that I am also not related to Sally Hemings.”  He proceeded to cackle “soitenly NOT, nyuk-nyuk” as he poked a reporter in both eyes with his fingers.    

Perhaps it’s just the endorphin high they’re experiencing from qualifying for the NCAA College Football Playoff this year, but yesterday the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan took one of the boldest moves to increase institutional productivity that higher education has seen in over a generation. 

Beginning on January 15, 2022, every dean at the University will be authorized to summarily fire up to five tenured faculty members in their school, with no justification required.  “In essence,” says Michigan President Mark Schlissel, “we’re implementing a version of the peremptory challenge process that is employed in jury selection, where an attorney can remove a prospective juror without having to give a reason.  We strongly believe that contemporary public universities desperately need such a policy if they are to survive.”

For their part, Michigan deans are beside themselves with eager anticipation.  As one dean put it, “The amount of time I spend dealing with a few annoying faculty members is soul-killing.  I usually dread returning to work after the holiday break, but this year I can’t wait to get back.  I haven’t been this excited since Pamela Turnstile agreed to have sex with me in 9th grade.  Oops, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned her name.”  

Experts predict that over 90% of all terminated faculty will fall into one of five categories:

Scribes:  Professors who send emails of interminable length to campus administrators, protesting anything and everything, and demanding that corrective action be taken.  No issue is too large, too small, or too inane.  (“Once again, I have been assigned a classroom for my Fractals Seminar that does not have moveable desks.  [See attached course schedule from the Registrar, along with a photograph of the desks.]  This makes it impossible for me to explore in depth the Mandelbrot Set with my students, and will result in disastrous learning consequences.  If you refer to my email of April 8, 2017, you will find that….”)

Annual Report Blowfish:  Faculty who document in writing, and in maddening detail, every conceivable activity they have engaged in that, in their fevered little brain, strengthens their case for a merit raise.  (“Please note, in the ‘Service to the University’ category, that I attended 5 men’s basketball games this fall.  I stayed to the end of every game, even though 3 of the games were lopsided and 2 went into double-overtime on nights that I had papers to grade.  Attached are photocopies of my ticket stubs.”)

RBFs:  Despite the sexist label (“Resting B***h Face”), this category can represent any gender.  At department and committee meetings, as well as town-hall sessions, these individuals constantly display the pained, disgusted facial expression of someone who’s had a small cactus permanently shoved up their rectum.  Their sour demeanor depresses everyone in the immediate vicinity.  Even colleagues who are typically happy and optimistic start to cry.  RBFs can say “that plan will never work” in 12 languages.  

The Passionately Confused:  At public meetings on campus, when the time comes for brief questions from the audience, the Passionately Confused introduce their query with a full-blown speech that is unrelated to the topic at hand.  They ignore polite requests (“sit down, Harold”) to wrap things up.  Indeed, such requests only solidify their resolve to continue.  (“I will NOT be silenced.  The failure to provide a vegan dessert option in the faculty dining room only serves to underscore the Administration’s indifference to the sanctity of all life.  This is not a University; it’s a cesspool of animal carcasses and saturated fat ruled by a tyrant!”)

The Profsplainers:  Relentlessly defending the abysmal student evaluations they receive year after year, these faculty claim that students will not recognize the value and brilliance of the pedagogy they have experienced until after they graduate.  (“I only publicly humiliate students now so they won’t make the same mistakes later on the job.  The bitter tears they shed today are a down payment on a successful tomorrow.”)  

The University of Michigan Faculty Senate has threatened to sue the school’s President and Board of Regents on the day the new policy goes into effect.

“Go ahead,” says Schlissel, glancing at the Clint Eastwood poster on his office wall.

“Make my day.”

 

 

Much useful advice is contained in Dr. Maria Wisdom’s recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay, “5 Factors to Consider Before You Leave Faculty Life” (November 17th online), but a few critical topics are left unaddressed.  For readers who are thinking about departing academia for a new career, here are 5 additional issues to keep in mind:

Normal people don’t talk like college professors.  For example, you will encounter very few accountants, bartenders, or X-ray technicians who use the phrase “lived experience.”  If you employ that phrase in their presence, they will tilt their head and gaze at you like a puzzled Cocker Spaniel.  They’ll do this because they’ll regard the phrase as stupidly redundant.  The reason they will believe this is because the phrase is stupidly redundant.  Suggestion:  During your first few months out of academia, don’t speak.  At all.  Take some time to reacquaint yourself with the English language.  

If you must talk, refrain from bragging that you seldom watch television, or — even worse — that you don’t even own a television.  Most people watch a LOT of television.  In fact, many families who can barely afford a bag of Cheetos and a toilet brush own a flat-screen TV that is larger than your garage door.  If these folks find out that you don’t watch TV, they’ll think you’re weird.  And they’ll be right.  What is WRONG with you?  

Expect to feel uncomfortable and have awkward interactions when you inform your academic friends that you are now making a living selling houseboat insurance.  You will see sadness in their eyes — sadness for you, not for themselves.  Don’t make a pathetic attempt to overcompensate by telling them that you have discovered a level of satisfaction in insuring houseboats that you never experienced as a faculty member.  They won’t believe you.  Because you won’t believe you.  Embrace your pain.  It’s okay to cry in public.  

When meeting people who don’t know your background in academia, decide how you’re going to react if they start telling cruel, hurtful jokes about college professors.  Will you inform them of what you used to do and then chastise them?  Will you be silent?  Will you join in and participate in the trashing of your former profession?  In race-relations terminology, choosing the second or third option is known as “passing.”  Consult the relevant literature for recommendations on how to pass successfully.  You might need to abandon your family of origin. 

If selling houseboat insurance works out well for you, make sure to purchase a high-end sports car and pay a visit to your old campus.  Ask your colleagues how their Zoom and hybrid classes are going, and inquire about the progress of the committee they’re on that’s responsible for redoing all the worksheets for community college transfers.  Show them your personalized “EX-PROF” license plate.  Casually smoke an expensive cigar in front of them, regardless of your gender.  Tell your friends in the English Department that it doesn’t matter if references to bacon and chutney in the novels of Edith Wharton foreshadow major themes in the mature work of Philip Roth.  It really doesn’t.

And for God’s sake, please go out and buy a big-ass TV.  You’ve earned it.