Month: November 2023

College presidents around the country are soiling their undergarments as they endeavor to issue solemn, noncontroversial pronouncements about the Israel-Hamas conflict.  Imagine walking blindfolded through a minefield while wearing clown shoes.  

University Life is here to help.  Choose any one of the following quotes as your official statement on the current crisis, and you won’t have to worry about being spat upon (or worse) at the upcoming holiday party on your campus.

“Uh-oh.  Things are bad right now.” — Brief, pithy, and you can’t be accused of taking sides.  This is the gold standard for presidential utterances during tough times. 

“Noisy, gasoline-powered leaf blowers have no place in a civilized society.” — Can be used with or without an exclamation point.  The fact that this assertion has nothing to do with the hostilities in the Middle East is its primary virtue.  It draws the reader’s attention away from the contentious matter that’s getting everybody riled up these days.  The only constituencies that might object to this sentence are the Buildings and Grounds folks at your institution who hate raking.  Solution:  don’t send the message to them.  

“All we are saying….is give pizza a chance.” — Who doesn’t love John Lennon or a slice from Domino’s?  This exhortation will serve you well as long as you don’t recommend a topping or mention Yoko Ono. 

“Human suffering upsets me.” — Most people share this sentiment, and the few who don’t will respect you for “speaking your truth.”

“Et tu, Brute?” — You can never go wrong with a quote from Shakespeare.  This selection will do just fine.  

“One state, two states, three states, more?  How many states are worth fighting for?” — No one can resist an old-fashioned short poem that actually rhymes.  The advantage of this one is that you aren’t taking a stand.  You’re just asking a question, and in doing so you empower the reader.

Okay, college presidents.  It’s time to take off those clown shoes and stride with confidence across your domain.   

 

In a November 15th press release, the Modern Language Association of America reported that enrollment in foreign-language courses in U.S. colleges and universities significantly declined from 2016 to 2021 (Chronicle of Higher Education, November 16th online).  

Experts note that there are a number of reasons for the decline.  Here’s what we know (percentage decreases are in parentheses):

FRENCH (-23.1%):  For decades, students took French because it was the language of seduction (e.g., “Voulez–vous coucher avec moi?”).  However, several studies have shown that it is the French accent that gets people into bed, not the words themselves.  As a result, interest in French courses has waned.  It is also the case that, increasingly, casual sex on college campuses requires only a minimal amount of preliminary conversation (“You wanna?”  “Um, Sure.”).  Elegant, seductive whispering just isn’t needed as much anymore.

CHINESE/MANDARIN (-14.3%):  With virtually all take-out menus in Chinese restaurants now available in English, student demand for instruction in this venerable language has plummeted.   

GERMAN (-33.6%):  The impact of social media and smartphones on the attention span of American students has made it impossible for them to learn lengthy German words like dralenstorfhausencracken.  You can’t communicate very effectively in Munich if your vocabulary is limited to frau and herr.  

PORTUGUESE (-21.8%):  With Russia having announced its plans to annex both Portugal and Brazil in early 2024 (“Our borders are threatened,” claims Putin), there won’t be much need for this language unless you are travelling to Mozambique or Cape Verde.  

JAPANESE (-4.6%):  For many years, most American students taking Japanese were under the mistaken impression that they were taking Chinese.  Ever since a New York Times investigation revealed that error, enrollment has dropped.

RUSSIAN: (-13.5%):  Speaking Russian is great when you’ve been drinking a lot of vodka and want to demonstrate bluster.  Unfortunately, as college students increasingly substitute hard seltzer for Russia’s national beverage, demand for its national language has taken a hit.  

SPANISH (-18%):  Now that the whole Lin-Manuel Miranda phenomenon has run its course, interest in Spanish has slipped.  The success of Bad Bunny has not been sufficient to offset this decline.

ITALIAN (-20.4%):  Once researchers discovered that nearly 85% of all Italian communication takes place through hand gestures, the need to know the actual words became much less pressing.  

LATIN (-21.5%):  Except for Vladimir Putin, nobody says “Veni, Vidi, Vici” anymore.  

ARABIC (-27.4%):  Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) remain very popular.  The language, not so much.

As Ron DeSantis is fond of asserting, “if you can’t say it in English, it’s probably not worth saying.”

 

 

TRUE FACT:  The Chronicle of Higher Education is not known for the amount of female cleavage it displays in a typical issue.  But that all changed on November 10, 2023, when a full-page photo of Dr. Wendy Osefo, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, accompanied an article that discussed her role in the “The Real Housewives of the Potomac,” a reality-TV show on Bravo.  Yowsa.

This is just the latest case of college professors dipping their toes — or, in the case of Dr. Osefo, something else — into the deep end of the pool of commercial television.  How many of the following shows do you remember?

UNDERCOVER NUN (1961-1963, CBS):  In the fall of 1961, Tamara Froxel, a Professor of Religious Studies at Wesleyan University, entered the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut.  She was not a nun, but pretended to be one.  

Wearing a bodycam disguised by her wimple, Dr. Froxel recorded the daily routines of the Abbey’s residents.  Because these cloistered women did not watch TV, they had no idea they were becoming famous.  

UNDERCOVER NUN was cancelled after two seasons.  According to the show’s producer, “eventually, people got tired of watching quiet women bake bread, can preserves, and gaze upward during prayer.  Forty-six episodes, and not one pillow fight at bedtime.  Very frustrating.”

TENURE ISLAND (1974, ABC):  The series began with 12 full professors from colleges around the country being parachuted onto a remote island in the South Pacific.  

By Day 10 they had all perished, having starved to death during a protracted community meeting in which a filibuster by a portly humanities professor from Clemson blocked a vote on a cannibalism proposal.  

“The show was an absolute disaster,” lamented its executive producer.  “We had no idea how clueless tenured professors would be when it came to surviving in the wild.”

The final episode of TENURE ISLAND has never been broadcast.  

DAM! (2002, National Geographic Channel):  In 2001, Nelson Crossfork, a Vanderbilt University anthropologist, spent 8 months as a member of a beaver colony in Caribou, Maine.  During that time he helped his fellow beavers build an elaborate dam on the Aroostook River. 

This limited series documented Crossfork’s arduous journey to becoming accepted by the beavers, culminating in a secret beaver-flap ceremony in which he was inducted into the Aroostook Order of the Overbite. 

In 2004, Crossfork returned to the colony, where he currently lives.  He works as a policy advocate for the Order of the Overbite, lobbying the Maine State government for beaver-friendly legislation. 

His memoir, “Beaver Boy,” will be published in 2025 by Simon & Schuster.   

Coming in March 2024 on Netflix:  WHO TOOK MY TOWEL?  THE REAL ADJUNCTS OF UC-BERKELEY’S STEAM ROOM.

 

Institutions of higher education have embraced branding with the ferocity of a sweaty, sumo-sized Aunt Ethel giving a full-body hug to her pierced-nostril niece at Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel.  Consider a few of the ad taglines in the October 27th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Fearlessly Forward” (University of Maryland); “Excellence Is Earned” (Rutgers); “Bold Hearts. Brilliant Minds.” (UC-Riverside); “Where Minds Meet Machines” (Stevens Institute of Technology).      

2024 will welcome a new batch of in-your-face slogans.  Here’s a sampling of what’s in the pipeline for January, according to Ad Age magazine:

“We’re Rich.  We’re STINKIN’ Rich.  And We’re Not Apologizing.”  (Harvard)

“God Wants You.  Here.”  (Oral Roberts University)

“Where Interpersonal Skills Go to Die”  (California Institute of Technology)

“We Do Football.  Full Stop.”  (University of Alabama)

“Even Our Underwear is Tweed”  (Yale)

“Colder Than a Polar Bear’s Ass.  Deal With It.”  (University of Alaska)

“We Give You the Keys to a Freakin’ Fighter Jet, Bro!”  (Air Force Academy)

“Protest Anything.  Anytime.  Anywhere.  We Don’t Care.”  (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

“Enjoy the Deep South.  In New Jersey.”  (Princeton)

“Education.  Plus Potatoes.”  (University of Idaho)

“Major in SPF 50”  (University of Miami)

“We Supply the Firearm.  You Decide How to Use It.”  (Texas A&M)

“Shave Your Legs.  Or Not.”  (Wellesley College)

“The Virgin Mary.  In Residence.  Every Day.”  (Catholic University of America)

“Other Schools Suck.  We Don’t.”  (Bucknell University)

College presidents, it’s time to check your brand.