Month: January 2023

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article offers excellent advice to faculty who are planning campus visits to conduct external program reviews (January 4th online).

On a larger scale, of course, professors often serve on site-visit teams that engage in comprehensive evaluations focused on accreditation of the college or university as a whole.  The stakes are higher here, so it’s crucial that faculty evaluators be at the top of their game.  The best way to do that is to heed the experts who encourage you to keep the following issues in mind:

—  The institution being evaluated will send you a hefty self-study prior to the visit, claiming that it covers “the good, the bad, and the ugly” with respect to the school’s functioning. 

You should read this document with the same degree of skepticism you would apply to self-descriptions on a dating website.  Not many prospects will describe themselves as having low intelligence, bad teeth, and nightmare-inducing acne.  Similarly, it’s the rare university self-study that will admit, “our President is a madman and we are a Goodyear blimp of grade inflation.”

—  There’s a good chance you’ll discover a disgruntled faculty member hiding in your hotel bathroom or under the bed when you arrive in town.  He or she will urgently desire to share with you terrifying accounts of the school’s many transgressions and injustices.  This could take several hours.  Listen carefully to what they have to say, lock them in a closet, and then call hotel security.  

—  Never trust a high-level male administrator wearing a bow tie…..unless he’s discussing wine. 

—  The most knowledgeable people at the institution will invariably be department secretaries.  They know where the bodies are buried, including the ones that are still alive and twitching.  At least 80% of your time should be spent interviewing them. 

—  You will chat with several small groups of bright, personable, enthusiastic students during your visit.  Please be aware that none of these individuals actually attend the institution.  They are all drama students from New York University who are employed part-time by the Rainbow Collective, a Manhattan-based agency that provides demographically balanced teams of drug-free young people for accreditation site visits.  

— Your team will have a “work room” on campus that contains a massive amount of hard-copy and electronic data on the institution that go back to the Code of Hammurabi.   The hard-copy materials will be in binders featuring more brightly colored reference tabs than you have ever seen in your life. 

None of this information will be useful to you.  However, to show your appreciation for all the hard work that went into compiling it, please scatter the documents around the room in a manner that suggests you’ve been reading them.

—  The work room will also contain a cornucopia of snacks and beverages for the visiting team, many of which will be of high quality.  Use a duffel bag to transport all of these treats back to your hotel room at the end of the day.  They will be replenished in the morning.  

—  The main reason for taking on the demanding task of an accreditation site visit is the food.  Typically, the team gathers for dinner every night at a local restaurant.  Go to the finest establishment you can find and pretend to be members of a debauched royal family.  Order a seven-course meal and throw wine glasses against the wall.  Request a suckling pig even if no one on the team eats pork.  Offer leftovers to the adjunct faculty members who are likely to be working as waitstaff.  

—  Most team chairpersons will want a draft of your section of the accreditation report before you leave campus at the end of the visit.  This will probably require you to pull a couple of all-nighters in order to meet the deadline.  It’s a little-known fact that chairpersons carry a large supply of amphetamines in their briefcase for precisely this purpose.  You are entitled to as many pills as you need to power through, but you must take the initiative to ask for them.  Don’t be shy.  

There you have it.  Now go forth and make your next accreditation site visit the best one ever!

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education explores the questions, “Should You Lead a Department on the Brink?  And How?” (January 13th online) 

Intriguing queries, to be sure.  But they bypass the most crucial issue:  “How can I be certain that my department is indeed the sort of dumpster fire that warrants a description of being ‘on the brink’?”

Fear not.  Here are the Top Ten warning signs that your academic dinghy is sinking:

—  At department meetings, faculty members do not address each other by name; they use the phrase “demon seed” instead.  

—  The pair of consultants the department hired to facilitate team building were hospitalized with PTSD following the first session.  They subsequently left the field altogether and now own a yarn boutique in Camden, Maine.  

—  When individuals calling your department are put on hold, Siberian funeral dirges play in the background, accompanying a deeply flawed public service announcement for a suicide hot line (“This could be your last chance…”).   

—  The department’s 2022 end-of-year holiday party featured a Velveeta sculpture, soggy saltines, and tap water.  The miniature Christmas tree sitting on top of the photocopier caught fire.  A BIC pocket lighter was discovered nearby.  

—  When department members were recently asked by your school’s IT office to update their computer passwords, they were instructed to register as “Guest.”

—  Prescriptions for Zoloft and Paxil account for 72% of your department’s budget. 

—  The last time your department sponsored a team-taught course, a knife fight broke out in class between the instructors.  Campus police had to be summoned.  There were minor injuries.  

—  Facilities staff have been showing up at your department in recent weeks, taking measurements in preparation for converting faculty offices into lounge areas for undergraduates majoring in e-sports and recreational cannabis. 

—  Department members routinely key the phrase “demon seed” on the car doors of their colleagues, often leaving their initials. 

—  Although custodial staff empty the office trash baskets of department members three times a week, the refuse they remove is simply dumped in the hallway and covered with lime. 

If three or more of the above conditions characterize your department, it might be wise to think twice before agreeing to serve as chair.  

Have a good semester. 

 

 

Trigger incidents in college classrooms hit an all-time high in 2022, with over 4700 cases reported to school administrators by traumatized students.  On Friday, the National Association of Higher Education Trauma Professionals (NAHETP) released its list of nominees for Most Bizarre Trigger Incident of 2022.  Here are the finalists:

—  At George Washington University, senior Carson Gramly was taking a midterm exam in American Politics when he looked up and saw the instructor using dental floss to remove a bit of pastrami that had gotten stuck between his teeth at lunch.  Seeing the strand of floss reminded Gramly of a gorgeous female in a string bikini he had walked behind on a Fort Lauderdale beach during spring break of 2019.  When he caught up with her and asked if she would be interested in “hooking up,” the woman howled with laughter and humiliated him in front of his friends.  

For two months following the midterm exam, Gramly suffered from debilitating erectile dysfunction.  His frustrated girlfriend broke up with him. 

—  At the first meeting of a Moravian Poetry seminar on the campus of Kansas State University, the instructor read aloud the name “Norton Tewksbury” from the class roll and looked around the room.  Tewksbury, who was present, had an immediate flashback to a nightmare he experienced at the age of five.  In the dream, a woolly mammoth resembling his grandmother roars his name just before devouring him.

Mr. Tewksbury, screaming “don’t eat me, Grammy, don’t eat me,” jumped up from his seat and attempted to exit the classroom through an open window.  He was subdued and sedated by the NAHETP clinical psychology intern assigned to the course.  

—  When a Fairfield University professor said “Let’s take a close look at the syllabus” on the first day of Accounting Fundamentals, sophomore Melanie Slurv-Gaston mistakenly heard “syphilis” instead of “syllabus.”  Slurv-Gaston, who for years had suffered from excessive ear wax, was instantly assaulted by memories from first grade at her conservative Catholic elementary school in Greenwich.  It was there that Sister Clarice had lectured the class on the ravages of venereal disease, showing gruesome slides of end-stage patients with syphilis.  

Now traumatized — again — in 2022, Ms. Slurv-Gaston passed out, hitting her head on the side of the desk and suffering a concussion.  

—  Minutes before the beginning of a Social Psychology class at Harvey Mudd College, the instructor scrunched up a piece of scrap paper into a ball and shot it, free-throw style, into a wastebasket approximately 10 feet away.  Quentin Tarff, a freshman who observed the shot, was reminded of his unsuccessful 3-point attempt as the buzzer sounded at the end of California’s 2021 high school state championship basketball game.  His team lost, 71-69, and he was shunned by students and faculty for the rest of the academic year.  

Mr. Tarff dropped out of Harvey Mudd two days after that class session.  He is currently unemployed and spends most of his time dribbling a partially deflated beach ball in the parking lot of a deserted shopping mall on the outskirts of Claremont.   

The winner of the Most Bizarre Trigger Incident of 2022 will be announced by NAHETP in mid-February.