Month: September 2024

The many publicized flaws in FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) have led critics to bludgeon the Department of Education with the vigor of psychotic 8-year-olds on a sugar high at a birthday party wielding spiked baseball bats at a piñata.

But the pummeling may finally be over.

On Wednesday, the Department of Education debuted a new, streamlined, 10-item FAFSA that should silence those who have been trashing the application.  As a service to University Life readers, we present FAFSA 4.0. 

(1)  How much money do your parents have right now?

Dollars _____     Cents _____

(2)  How much of that amount are they willing to spend on your first year of college?

Dollars _____     Cents _____

(3)  No, seriously.  How much?  (Assume they love you a moderate amount.)

Dollars _____     Cents _____

(4)  Are you willing to engage in sex work during your first year of college in order to help pay your tuition bill?

Yes _____

No _____ (skip to Question 6)

(5)  How physically attractive are you?

_____ Smokin’

_____ Pretty good-looking

_____ Reasonably attractive, depending on the lighting

_____ Not great, by any means

_____ One-eyed dogs missing a leg have crossed the street to avoid me

(6)  Would you be willing to attend college if you could only afford the dining hall’s Super-Economy Meal Plan (one meal every other day)?

Yes _____

No _____

(7)  Would you have a problem with occasionally stealing cash that your college roommate carelessly left lying around your shared room?

Yes _____

No _____

(8)  Are you okay with attending a crappy school in a warm climate if it meant that you could spend less money on clothes for the winter?

Yes _____

No _____

Exactly how crappy are we talking? _____

(9)  Are you applying to college because you want to go, or because your parents want you to go?

I want to go _____

It’s my parents _____

(10) No, seriously.

I want to go _____

It’s my parents _____

Pilot-testing indicates that 97% of high-school seniors can complete this application in less than 5 minutes.

A tip of the hat to the Department of Education, which finally gets a win.  

 

 

 

 

Should college presidents take public positions on controversial social issues?  This question continues to stir debate in higher education.  

The latest casualty: Ronald J. Daniels, President of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  

On September 16th, a “hot mic” at a Hopkins alumni dinner caught Daniels saying to a donor: “If the [NFL’s Baltimore] Ravens are going to recover from their 0-2 start this season, [Lamar] Jackson will need to up his game at quarterback.”  

Reaction was swift. 

The Baltimore chapter of the NAACP condemned the statement, asserting that “we no longer live in an era when a white man can get away with telling a black man how to do his job.  Daniels must not have seen the memo.  He must go.”

The Faculty Senate at Hopkins unanimously passed a no-confidence vote targeting Daniels, noting that “we always kick off the academic year with a no-confidence vote in the President.  It usually focuses on parking.  It’s a Hopkins tradition.” 

ESPN called on Daniels to resign, noting that the President’s comment had adversely affected sales of Jackson’s football jersey and Axe Body Spray fragrance (“Turf Toe”) at the network’s flagship store, ESPN Zone, in Manhattan.  

Two of the most militant student groups on campus — Jews for Israel and Palestinians for Gaza — put aside their differences and signed a joint statement demanding that the President step down, insisting that “even though the President’s remarks had nothing to do with the current crisis in the Middle East, we’re in college and so rabid with all-encompassing rage it doesn’t matter.  It’s time for Daniels to enter the lions’ den.”  

And Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy issued a press release in which he criticized Daniels for not providing his country with long-range missiles “that could reach deep into Putin’s Russia, piercing its vital organs.  Ronald Daniels, you call yourself a leader?  I call you a timid little mouse looking for moldy cheese in the dark, dusty corners of the world’s closet.”

Daniels has vowed not to resign, maintaining that “I’m not the problem.  Trust me, the Baltimore Ravens are the problem.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently highlighted the accomplishments of a number of scholars who continue to be active well into their 80s and 90s (September 4th online).

But let’s not overlook the centenarians.  Here are six noteworthy books that have been published in the past year by emeritus professors who are 100 or older. 

The Jesus I Knew (Ezekiel Stubbs, Harvard Divinity School):  Professor Stubbs is one of the few living academics who was personally acquainted with Jesus of Nazareth.  Kirkus Reviews praises the book as “a warm, affectionate tribute that reveals a madcap side of the Son of God that is largely missing from Biblical accounts.  Stubbs devotes an entire chapter to the bar mitzvah where Jesus transformed a donut into the world’s first bagel.  A must-read.”

Cheese (Maxwell Labrine, Vanderbilt University):  The author devotes this 575-page memoir to a single morning in which he sat on his living-room sofa contemplating what type of cheese he would put on his lunchtime sandwich.  The New York Times Book Review calls it “a dazzling stream-of-consciousness work that combines the best qualities of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and Joyce’s Ulysses.  This cheese is delicious.”

I Remember (Monica Von Blazen, Tufts University):  Von Blazen recalls the glorious days when cartoons in The New Yorker were actually funny.  She  wonders: “What the hell happened?”  “A plea for a return to laughter that is so poignant it will leave you in tears,” says The New York Review of Books. 

Sequence (Caleb Stavens, The College of Charleston):  On a cross-country road trip with his daughter, Stavens reviews his medical bills in an attempt to reconstruct the precise order in which he had his knees replaced, hips replaced, cataracts removed, hearing aids installed, and teeth capped.  The Guardian’s reviewer describes it as “a fun ride, but with a serious message about aging for us all.”

“That’s Not My Problem…” (Arlene Ambergris):  A side-splitting account of the hundreds of different reasons for missing an assignment deadline that students gave Ambergris over the course of her seven decades as a professor.  Each brief chapter focuses on a single excuse and ends with the response Ambergris always gave:  “Sorry, but that’s not my problem.  That’s your problem.” 

Carving History (Fiona Thrush, University of Denver):  A day-by-day account of the process by which the Grand Canyon was created by the relentless flow of the Colorado River over millions of years.  “Tedious and repetitive, but worth it” (Washington Post).

All of these books can be ordered from Amazon’s Century website.  

As faculty members across the country return to college and university classrooms this week, many are anxious about the challenges they’ll face in managing students who are more prone than ever to take offense at anything their instructors might say or do.

But no one is worried at the University of Missouri.  

At Mizzou, traditional teaching assistants have been replaced by lawyers.  Indeed, every course at the University of Missouri this fall has a classroom aide who is also a practicing attorney.  

“The attorney is there to make sure that instructors never behave in a fashion that would make them legally vulnerable,” notes Mun Choi, Chancellor of the University.  “Let’s say a professor announces that the due date for an assignment is December 8th.  Well, that happens to be the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day for Catholics. The attorney could advise the instructor to suggest that students turn in their paper on that day if they’re in the mood, rather than require them to do so.  Voila!  No lawsuit!

“Another example: during class discussion, a student asserts that Scotland started World War II when it dropped an atomic bomb on Düsseldorf.  The professor might be tempted to immediately respond, ‘No, you’re wrong’, exposing the student to humiliation and the risk of trauma.  Before that can happen, the attorney is likely to recommend an alternative reply, such as ‘That’s certainly one way to look at it.  Good job!  With historical stuff, it’s often so hard to know for sure what really happened.’  Trauma averted!”

Choi acknowledges that the University will probably not be able to hire graduates of elite law schools to serve as classroom aides: “Folks from Harvard and Yale tend to view Missouri as a toxic landfill, a place where your Chardonnay comes in a shoebox.  But we’re OK with that.  We’re looking for lawyers who possess down-to-earth expertise, ones who learned their craft representing people who shoplift Twizzlers and No-Pest Strips from Dollar General.”