Month: March 2022

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently explored the growing presence of Emotional-Support Animals (ESAs) on college campuses around the country (March 17th online).  These animals provide individuals with comfort or aid through companionship, unconditional positive regard, and affection.  

Now, at Sweet Briar College, a women’s school in Virginia, an ESA scandal has erupted.  On March 23rd, 18 students were suspended for disguising their live-in boyfriends (in 3 cases, girlfriends) as emotional-support dogs in their dorm rooms. 

The ruse was discovered by a member of the housecleaning staff who noticed that the support dogs appeared to be “a lot bigger than any damned dogs I had ever laid eyes on.”  The staff member alerted her supervisor, who informed campus police.  The ensuing investigation uncovered the fraud.  

The support-dog impostors, who were all arrested, included Griffin Hurf, a 340-lb. defensive lineman on the Amherst County High School football team.  He was taken into custody wearing a Scooby Doo costume.

The suspended Sweet Briar students were defiant.  “I’m a healthy young woman, and I have the desires of a healthy young woman,” proclaimed Poinsettia Van Tillotsen, a junior from Lexington, Kentucky.  “I’m majoring in Mechanical Engineering, which is an extremely demanding field.  When I return to my room at the end of a long, stressful day I need a lot more than a cup of chamomile tea and a macaroon to relax.  I need my hunka, hunka burnin’ love.  Is that so hard to understand?”

Sweet Briar officials say the matter is now closed; they do not plan to comment further.  

Lyle Krusker, assistant professor of chemistry at Syracuse University, was not optimistic about being promoted to associate professor this year.  Yes, he was a respected researcher, and student evaluations of his teaching were positive, but his record of “service to the university” was sketchy.  In the past four years he had only served on one faculty committee, a sleepy little task force responsible for choosing the food trucks that would engorge tailgaters at homecoming.  

Enter Quentin Weft, and his terrifying encounter in early December with a stale breadstick at the Wednesday night Olive Garden Festival in the dining commons.  A sophomore, Quentin literally bit off more than he could chew, and started choking.  Dr. Krusker noticed the emergency and rushed over to administer the Heimlich maneuver to Quentin, saving his life.

When Syracuse’s Tenure and Promotion Committee reviewed Krusker’s application in mid-January, they concluded that this intervention provided credible evidence of his service to the university.  He was awarded tenure and promoted.  As one Committee member put it, “hey, the guy came through in a life-and-death situation involving a tuition-paying student.  Service doesn’t get any more meaningful than that.”

Since then, tenure and promotion committees across the country have started considering the Heimlich maneuver when making decisions.  Of course, certain conditions must be met.  For one thing, only on-campus incidents typically count.  As the Provost of Connecticut College recently observed, “we’re talking about service to the college here.  Saving a random person’s life in a downtown New London restaurant, or on the sidewalk, doesn’t qualify.” 

Moreover, the life-saving attempt must be successful.  A department chair at Fordham University notes that “one of our associate professors failed to dislodge an oversized peach pit from the throat of a freshman, though she tried mightily.  She ended up not getting tenure, and that was the reason.  We’re a performance-based institution.  I don’t mean to be cynical, but Marge would have been better off serving a term or two on the Faculty Senate.  It’s a real shame.”

Unintended consequences have also begun to emerge.   At the College of Charleston, an assistant professor was arrested three weeks ago at the cafeteria’s buffet bar as he attempted to hide chicken bones in the Cobb salad.  And at Lehigh University, a choking undergraduate died as two desperate tenure candidates fought over who was going to give him the Heimlich.  A campus police officer was present at the scene, but wasn’t sure if he had the authority to intervene, given that the academic domains of tenure and promotion were involved.  “We’re going to work with the Provost’s office to develop a policy on how to handle these situations in the future,” said the chief of campus police.  “This incident was embarrassing for everybody, and the student’s parents were not thrilled, as you might imagine.”

The lesson here for higher education administrators?  If you don’t currently have clear guidelines in place for the Heimlich/T&P/Campus Police interface, it’s time to get busy.  

 

Students at the University of Virginia have voted to amend the school’s Honor Code.  A two-semester leave of absence will replace expulsion as the sanction for committing an offense (The Cavalier Daily, March 4th online).  

This action reflects the changing landscape of punishment for honor-code violations at colleges and universities across the country.  Here’s a sampling of 10 penalties now being applied at various institutions:

Harvard —  Offenders must engage in a 45-minute conversation with a working-class Cambridge resident to explain the concept of high-end distressed jeans.  (“You see, if they look damaged you can charge more — a lot more.  Why do you still seem confused?”)

Bowdoin College —  Convicted students are required to watch the school’s curling team practice four times a week for a semester, with each session lasting three hours. 

Valparaiso University —  The student’s Netflix subscription is suspended for an entire academic year.

University of Arkansas —  Students found guilty are not allowed to partake of possum-flavored chewing tobacco for a full semester.  This punishment applies to both males and females. 

Georgia Tech —  Code violators view a 12-hour video, “He/She/They/Zorf: Evolving Issues in Gender Pronouns” (a panel discussion featuring faculty members from Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke).  Students can choose to jump off the school’s 1300-foot bell tower into a pit of Egyptian cobras rather than watch the video.  Most jump. 

University of Miami —  Offenders are banned from using tanning butter for three weeks.  During this period sunburns cannot be treated with aloe or any other soothing product. 

Arizona State University —  Those pleading guilty must speak with a British accent for two months in all campus locations, including bed.  The word “blimey” must be used at least once during every sexual encounter. 

University of California at Berkeley — No avocado toast for a full calendar year. 

University of Oklahoma —  Miscreants are tied, naked, to a satellite dish on the roof of a mobile home during tornado season.   Rakes and kitchen knives are scattered in an adjacent yard. 

Princeton —  Offenders must prepare a comprehensive dictionary that translates the language of New Jersey shoreline residents into English.

You’re still thinking about the pricing of those distressed jeans, aren’t you?

 

The Subject line of a recent “Teaching” column in the Chronicle of Higher Education reads, “How to Help Students Listen for the Key Idea” (February 17th online). 

Uh-oh.

The problem here is the implication that every lecture contains a key idea.

Most professors, even those at elite schools, are lucky if they are blessed with a key idea once or twice during an entire semester.  The notion that they would have such an idea to share with students at every class meeting is pretty funny.  Indeed, the core challenge in college teaching is how to handle the fact that the vast majority of class sessions contain NO key idea.

Here are five proven strategies that experienced faculty members routinely use in this situation: 

Turn the Tables — Place the burden on the student to discover whether a key idea is embedded in your lecture.  Emphasize that one of the critical cognitive skills to be developed in college is the ability to determine if something is present or absent.  Tell them that there might be a key idea in your lecture today, or there might not be.  It’s their job to figure out which is the case.  If they identify a key idea when none is present, express your disappointment and hurt.  This will make them defensive, which is good for learning.  

Be Transparent —  Acknowledge up-front that there will be no key idea communicated in class today.  Come clean by informing students that your lecture will basically consist of a lot of random crap strung together by several amusing anecdotes.  Students will appreciate your honesty, and you’ll sleep better.  

Go Postmodern —  Share with students your aggressive critique of the meritocratic, objectivist, bankrupt notion that some ideas are more “key” than others.  That’s just bullshit.  Who’s to say that the observation, “there is chewing gum stuck to the sole of my shoe,” is more or less key than the assertion, “Claude Monet was a founder of Impressionist painting”?  Context is everything.  

Pick an Idea.  ANY Idea. —  Before class, spread out a hard copy of your lecture notes on the kitchen table.  Close your eyes and place your forefinger on a random sentence.  That sentence will be your key idea for the day.  During class, say it louder than any other sentence.  You might wonder, “Doesn’t it make a difference which sentence I choose?”  No, it doesn’t.  When you walk into the classroom and gaze at those heavy-lidded eyes that are struggling to keep you in focus, you’ll know that.  

Turn the Tables II —  Impress upon students the following eternal truth: everything you say in class is key.  Every.  Single.  Utterance.  This was the preferred strategy of professors in the 1950s, and it served them well.  It’s the strategic gift that keeps on giving, as students develop obsessive-compulsive tendencies for note-taking that generalize to many other spheres of their lives.  These neurotic habits will be passed on to their children, ensuring your legacy as a professor “who made a difference” for generations to come.

Now that’s a key idea worth remembering.