Month: April 2022

Yep, it’s true.  Harvard plans to spend $100 million in an attempt to atone for its ties to slavery (Chronicle of Higher Education, April 26th online).  

This is, without question, a big story.  Lost in the fine print, however, is an even bigger one.  Beginning in September, legacy students at Harvard will no longer be served dinner prior to non-legacy students in campus dining halls.  

Since 1950, the offspring of Harvard parents have dined every day at 5:00 pm.  After they finish their meal, cafeteria staff scrape the plates and serve the leftovers to non-legacy students at 7:00 pm.    

According to Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, “second-shift diners have complained for decades that this practice makes them feel like second-class citizens.  Our response has always been, ‘just be grateful that you’re at Harvard’.

“We now realize that such an attitude is hurtful.  Non-legacy students are just as deserving as legacy ones, at least when it comes to meals.  Of course, full equality between the two groups may not be desirable in the long run, but some change is clearly called for.  As we like to say in Cambridge, ‘When the firm hand of the ruling class is guided by a benevolent heart, the result is social stability’.”

Inspiring words for these troubled times, to be sure. 

True Fact:  Beginning this semester, students at California State University, Fullerton with a GPA below 2.0 will no longer be put on “academic probation.”  Rather, they will be placed on “academic notice.”  This new wording represents an attempt on the school’s part to lessen the personal stigma associated with poor academic performance (Inside Higher Ed, April 18th).  

The university’s action has prompted schools across the country to review the language they use in communicating with students who are in academic distress.  Here’s a random sample of phrases and sentences that will be dropped in the months to come:

Dartmouth:  “You suck.”

Sweet Briar College:  “Oh, my, it looks like it’s time for a young lady we know to attend to her soiled academic undergarments!”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology:  “Your GPA is circling the drain, and the circles are getting smaller.”

Grinnell College:  “Dear Dopey DoughPersun…”

University of Maine:  “You have been placed on Academic Death Watch.  Beware of a hooded visitor in the night carrying a scythe.”

Florida State University:  “In the bathroom of higher education your exposed academic ass is about to be consumed by a bunch of starving gators climbing out of the toilet.”

Boston University:  “Hey, Brainless….”

Oral Roberts University:  “Welcome to Hell’s staging area.  Yes, it will be indescribably painful.”

U. S. Naval Academy:  “Midshipman, your canoe is taking on the fetid water of failure.”

Lehigh University:  “You are such a disappointment to your family and others who have put their faith in you.”

Let’s be honest:  the time for deleting such offensive language is long overdue.

 

 

 

 

 

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported on a whistleblower’s lawsuit that claims the Business School at Rutgers University “created fake jobs for grads to lift its rankings” (April 8th online).  

In response, Rutgers will publish the following full-page ad in the next issue of the Chronicle:

“Success in the business world requires imagination and creativity.  Telling the truth requires no imagination or creativity.  Anyone can do it.  In fact, telling the truth is often an obstacle to imagination and creativity.

“In the Rutgers MBA program, we’ll teach you how to craft falsehoods with confidence.  The skills you’ll learn in prevarication, deceit, obfuscation, and misdirection will help ensure that your business career will be traveled in the express lane on capitalism’s superhighway, not on the rutted, litter-strewn back roads of truth-telling mediocrity.

“We’re the Rutgers Business School.

“Ranked #1 in fraud by U. S. News & World Report.

“Come lie with us.

“Let’s face it, is there any other reason to spend time in New Jersey?”

Sometimes, you just have to tip your hat and say, “job well done.”

A full-page ad in the April 1st issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (p. 19) boldly proclaims the accomplishments of SMU.  Nowhere on that page is the full name of the school spelled out: Southern Methodist University.  Clearly, the ad assumes that readers of the Chronicle perceive Southern Methodist University as the SMU.

Hold on there just a minute, buckaroos.

How about Saint Mary’s University in Winona, Minnesota?  Or Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia?  Or Singapore Management University in….um….Singapore?  Have you considered Sikkim Manipal University in Gangtok, India?  Of course, there’s Shanghai Maritime University in China.  And let’s not forget Svenska Missionskyrkans Ungdom, a prominent Christian Youth Organization in Sweden.

R. Gerald Turner, President of Southern Methodist University, makes no apologies for the assumption:  “We’re the only SMU that matters.  Our endowment is over $2 billion, and our football team would crush a team from any of those other schools.  Hell, we’d take on TWO of their teams at the same time — 22 versus 11 — and still obliterate them.  And don’t get me started on that unpronounceable Scandinavian youth group.  Playing them would be like driving a road paver over a box of Swedish Fish gummies.  All that would be left is a stain on the asphalt.”

A bit callous, perhaps, but probably correct.  

The first Ph.D. dissertation exploring the significance of the incident involving Chris Rock and Will Smith at the 2022 Academy Awards was published yesterday by Oxford University Press.  Written by Caleb Kurf, a doctoral student in Sociology at New York University, the dissertation argues that the Rock/Smith interaction represented not a conflict, but a fraternal bonding, between the two men.  

Entitled “A Slap is NOT a Punch: Contextualizing the Resistance of the Black Elite to White Colonialism in the Film Industry,” the work shows that Smith’s use of his open hand to strike Rock signaled that the former was “reaching out in solidarity to a brother.  Exposing one’s palm is a universal sign of vulnerability, not hostility or aggression.  The subtext of the interaction was the long-suppressed outrage that both parties felt toward the negative reviews received by The Karate Kid, a 2010 remake starring Jaden Smith, Will’s son.  The slap symbolized the abuse that Jaden had suffered at the hands of clueless movie critics.”

“We fast-tracked Caleb’s dissertation for approval, given the importance of the subject matter,” says NYU Sociology Department Chair Wendell Levitt-Nissan.  “He researched and wrote his analysis on Sunday night following the Awards broadcast, and defended the dissertation before a faculty committee on Tuesday afternoon.  He signed a contract with Oxford University Press on Tuesday night, and a monograph based on the work was published on Thursday.  A book signing will be held at the 82nd and Broadway location of Barnes & Noble in Manhattan on Saturday from 1 to 3 pm.  Kendrick Lamar will perform ‘Jaden’s Song,’ his latest release, at 2:30.  The after-party will be held from 4 to 7 at the home of Bill de Blasio, former mayor of New York City.”