Month: September 2025

On Thursday, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced that, beginning in January 2026, the syllabus for every undergraduate course in the country must explain HOW that course will make students “job ready.”  

“College students in this nation spend way too much of their time learning about stuff that has no practical value,” said McMahon.  “What can a 19-year-old do with the abstract fluff gained in a philosophy course on Morality and Ethics?  Absolutely nothing.  On the other hand, a course in Strategic Bribery would give them the tools required to be successful in all sorts of work-related endeavors.  How do you think I got my job?  You need to know when the time is right to grease someone’s palm with a C-note, and when it makes more sense to pull hard on their private parts with a pair of rusty pliers.

“Another example: history courses on Slavery in the United States.  What are they going to accomplish other than make students depressed, angry, and averse to vacationing in Mississippi?  That’s not the way to build a competent workforce.  Far better to reframe this subject as a management seminar on Coercive Teambuilding in the Agricultural Sector.  There may come a time in the not-too-distant-future when this assertively artisanal approach to harvesting crops justifiably returns to the South as our economy recovers from the devastation caused by the Biden administration.

“I encourage professors to start reviewing their syllabi now, before it’s too late.  The last thing our country needs is more courses devoted to Madonna-and-Child Art of the Renaissance, unless instructors provide time machines in the classroom that can transport students back to the 15th century for job interviews.  

“What we do need are courses that teach students how to pack a freakin’ grocery bag at Safeway without crushing the grapes and tomatoes under the canned goods and 12-packs of Mountain Dew.  That’s a skill that will help them compete in today’s highly competitive retail labor market.  Let’s give these young people a degree that will mean something.     

“Seize the day, faculty members of America, before I show up on your campus bearing pliers.”  

 

After three years of intensive research involving many false leads, a team of UCLA anthropologists has located and identified the only current undergraduate in the United States who has read an entire book for a college course. 

Timothy Durvineaux, a sophomore at Middlebury College in Vermont, read all 635 pages of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick for a Spring 2025 seminar on “Whales in American Fiction.”

Timothy, a hedge-fund major, apparently read the novel by mistake.  “I thought the professor said we had to read the book, but it turns out that she was fine with us watching the 1956 movie starring Gregory Peck, which is what everyone else did.  Am I stupid or what?”

When asked to describe what it was like to read the world-famous novel, Durvineaux responded, “Holy crap, there were so many words!  Page after page with nothing but words.  My copy had no pictures or drawings.  You’d think they would at least put in a picture of a whale or a ship or a harpoon or something to break up the monotony.  But nope.  It was a nightmare.”

The research team asked Timothy if he planned to read more books during his junior and senior years at Middlebury.

“You’re kidding, right?”

The total number of new tenure-track positions available at U. S. colleges and universities is expected to drop to FIVE in the fall of 2027, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

This number does not bode well for graduate students currently working on their doctoral dissertations.  These individuals are in desperate need of a Plan B.  Fortunately, one is readily available: authoring a bestselling book on leadership.

The American professional class has an insatiable appetite for books on leadership; it consumes them with the same fervor that Joey Chestnut displays when gorging himself on wieners at Coney Island’s Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Of course, you might be saying to yourself right now, “My dissertation focuses on rare strains of amoebic dysentery found in luxury resorts in Acapulco.  What do I know about leadership?”

Relax.  We live in a post-knowledge era.  All you need to do is follow these 15 easy steps:

1. Obtain a pair of dice.  Throw one die in the trash and roll the other one.  The number that comes up represents the number of factors in your leadership model. 
2. Pick any participle that represents action (e.g., “launching,” “propelling,” “selling”). 
3. Pick any noun that captures the meaning of “vision.”  Better yet, just use the word “vision.”
4. Use Steps 1, 2, and 3 to assemble the book’s title (e.g., “Harnessing Your Vision: The Four Keys to Effective Leadership”).
5. Select the nouns that will correspond to the number of factors in your title. Any nouns will do (e.g., “fortitude,” “bacon,” “initiative,” “spackle”). 
6. It’s time to write the text for the book, addressing the leadership factors you identified in Step 5.  Doing this will be much easier than you think (e.g., “Successfully leading your organization is like frying bacon.  Too much heat, and it will be burnt and crumbly.  Too little, and you’ll end up with the limp, soggy, slimy mess they serve in England.”).  If you encounter writer’s block, smoke a little weed.  If that doesn’t work, smoke more.
7. Self-publish 10 copies of your book.  
8. Drive to the nearest airport.
9. Buy the cheapest round-trip ticket you can.  The destination is irrelevant.  Your goal here is to gain access to the bookstores on the other side of airport security.
10. Place 5 copies of the book in a carousel for self-help books near the departure gate for your flight.  Make sure to paste a label inside each copy that includes the book’s price and your home address (from which additional copies can be ordered).  
11. Get on the plane.
12. When you arrive at your destination, repeat Step 10.
13. Fly home and wait for the orders to arrive.
14. When the number of orders reaches 100 (don’t worry, it will), approach HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster.  Start a bidding war.
15. Get rich.  Occasionally make a donation to a charitable organization that provides emergency shelter for homeless adjunct faculty.  Send a complimentary copy of your book to the advisor of the dissertation you abandoned.

You can do this.  Get busy.