Month: February 2023

On February 17th the Chronicle (p. 60) published a thought-provoking essay on the phenomenon of “ghosting” in academia.  Coincidentally, this article appeared on the 70th anniversary of one of the most notorious instances of the other “G” word — “gaslighting” — in the history of higher education: Dartmouth’s Dark Night.

Read and weep. 

On Monday, February 16, 1953, Gabriel “Gabe” Mussum, a freshly minted Stanford PhD, arrived at the Hanover Inn on the campus of Dartmouth College.  On Tuesday he would begin two days of interviews for an assistant-professor position in the school’s Department of History.  He checked in without incident.  

By midday on Tuesday the 17th it had become clear to both the History Department Chair and the Dean of Arts and Sciences that Mussum was not a good fit.  Most egregiously, he combed his hair straight back in an era when virtually all male faculty members at Dartmouth parted their hair on the right.  

When Gabe returned to the Hanover Inn on Monday evening, he discovered that his room key did not work.  He went downstairs to the front desk, where he was told that no one named “Mussum” was registered at the Inn.  This information came from Bernice, the same woman who had checked him in the night before.  Bernice now claimed that she had never encountered Gabe on Monday. 

Bewildered, Gabe scurried across Dartmouth College Green to the building where the Dean’s office was located, hoping to find him still there despite the late hour.  Indeed, the Dean had not yet left, but he simply stared blankly at Gabe and declared, “I have no idea who you are, young man.”  

Gabe returned to the Inn, only to find out that it was fully booked for the night.  Bernice suggested that he walk to a nearby Motel 6, which was a little over a mile away.  He departed just as it began to snow heavily.  It turned out to be the biggest snowstorm of the season: 26 inches in 4 hours.  

Gabe never arrived at the Motel 6.  On February 22nd a cross-country skier noticed a frozen human leg sticking out of a snowbank on the edge of the Dartmouth campus.  The leg was attached to Gabe Mussum. 

The case remained unsolved until 1997, when the long-retired Dean of Arts and Sciences was receiving last rites on his deathbed from a Catholic priest.  The Dean confessed: “I’ve carried this horrible secret with me for 44 years. We were just trying to save a little money on hotel expenses, that’s all.  Dartmouth’s endowment was a lot smaller back then.  I authorized the entire deception, including the changing of the lock on the door.  Am I going to Hell, Father?”

“I’m afraid so, my son.  I’ll be recommending it.”

Legend has it that the ghost of Gabe Mussum can be seen walking slowly across the Dartmouth College Green every February 17th at midnight.  He wears a tweed jacket and carries a doctoral dissertation.  His hair is parted on the right.  

 

 

Devotees of academic-freedom controversies in higher education have been following with great interest the ongoing saga of Hamline University, the St. Paul, MN school that fired an adjunct faculty member after she displayed an artistic depiction of the Prophet Muhammed in class — and a student complained (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 13th online).  

But now, Ground Zero for Divinity-Related Kerfuffles has shifted to Indiana, where a history professor at Valparaiso University was discharged last week after showing a Mormon painting of Jesus Christ in his senior seminar, “Utah: State, or State of Mind?”  

A male sophomore in the course said he was traumatized by the portrait, which, he claims, makes Jesus resemble “the love child of Kenny Loggins and one of the Beach Boys.  There’s no way the Son of God could look like that.  Everyone knows that the real Jesus bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Mick Jagger, leader of the world’s greatest rock-and-roll band.  Just watch any YouTube video of Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount during his legendary Water-into-Wine concert tour in Northern Israel two-thousand years ago; he moves just like Mick does on stage when he’s performing Start Me Up.”

In announcing the termination of the professor in question, Valparaiso President José Padilla commented that “this student makes a legitimate point.  I’ve seen the video.  Jesus was the original Rolling Stone.  We had no choice but to take action.”  

 

 

As Charles Dickens recently observed, it is the “worst of times” in higher education.  College classrooms have become battlegrounds, belittled by conservatives as enclaves of leftist indoctrination and scorned by liberals as political minefields where free speech is threatened even as microaggressions and traumatizing triggers run rampant.  

Is there any way out of this mess?

Florida State University thinks so.

Beginning in the fall of 2023, FSU’s Sociology Department will offer Void 101, a three-credit, Pass-Fail, content-free elective course. 

According to Department Chair Clyde Fliff, “nothing will happen in Void 101.  This in-person course will meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:30 am to 10:45 am, but no one will say anything during that time.  Students will sit silently for the entire period, as will the instructor.  This will eliminate the possibility of problematic interactions taking place.  Students who refrain from speaking for the entire semester will receive a final grade of Pass.

“The goal of Void 101 is to cleanse students’ minds of troubling, as well as untroubling, thoughts.  The only required text is a blank Moleskine diary.  If a student has a cognition at any point during a class session, he or she will write that thought down in the diary, tear out the page, and burn it after leaving the room.  In Void 101, an educated mind is one that is clear and free of debris, like a cloudless sky on a summer’s day in Tallahassee.  By the end of the course, high-achieving students should have nothing to write about in their diaries. 

“For far too long — indeed, centuries — colleges and universities have been obsessed with trying to fill students’ heads with content in the form of information, ideas, and values.  This needs to stop.  The time has come to empty those precious heads and take higher education to the next level.”

Students will not be allowed to visit the bathroom during meetings of Void 101, since doing so could serve as a trigger for those who might have been bedwetters as children.  

Plans are under way to introduce Void 102 (Advanced Void) in the spring of 2024.  In Void 102 total silence will still be observed in the classroom, but thinking about Division I college football will be encouraged.