Author: Michael Morris

The title of a recent Inside Higher Ed article asked, “Who’s doing the heavy lifting in terms of diversity and inclusion work?”  The unsurprising answer is that faculty members who engage the most in this arena are likely to be non-white, non-male, or first-generation college attendees. 

Some schools are now attempting to distribute the lifting more evenly.  Unfortunately, not everyone is equally prepared to hoist.

Consider what happened at the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI), which is located in northern Maine near the Canadian border. 

According to a UMPI administrator who wishes to remain anonymous, the University wanted to establish a cadre of white professors who could serve as mentors to the small number of black students on campus.  A multiple-choice test was developed to assess the professors’ fundamental knowledge of black history.  Of the 52 faculty members who took the test, only 3 passed, and 2 of those individuals were later found to have cheated.  

Here is the test in its entirety:

1.  Who founded Motown Records?

A.  Berry Gordy

B.  Halle Berry

C.  Boysen Berry

2.  Which of the following does not belong?

A.  Count Basie

B.  Duke Ellington

C.  King Tut

3.  A seminal jazz album recorded by Miles Davis is:

A.  Kind of Blue

B.  Sort of Green

C.  Somewhere between Teal and Turquoise

4.  James Baldwin and Alec Baldwin are:

A.  brothers.

B.  father and son.

C.  probably not related.  

5.  Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech was written and delivered by:

A.  Carol King

B.  Martin Luther King

C.  Martin Luther

6.  Harriet Tubman is best known for her work with:

A.  the Underground Railroad.

B.  the Velvet Underground, an iconic 1960’s rock band.

C.  Amtrak, which she founded. 

7.  Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel:

A.  Fifty Shades of Grey.

B.  Beloved.

C.  Star Wars.

8.  Neil deGrasse Tyson is:

A.  an astrophysicist.

B.  a point guard for the Miami Heat.

C.  Trick question:  There is no person named Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

“What is particularly embarrassing is that you only needed to get five questions right to pass the test and become a mentor,” says the UMPI source.  “This result is simply unacceptable.  These are the same professors who can identify an L. L. Bean Duck Boot from over 200 yards away…at night…in the fog!  Give me a break!”

On a more positive note, in May 2019 the UMPI Martial Arts Squad (nicknamed The Wakandans, although 6 of its 7 members are white) defeated student teams from Bryn Mawr College and Oberlin College in the Aroostook County Moose-Wrestling Invitational, an annual competition between the three schools.  UMPI has won this event for the past 12 years.  During that time, no moose has ever been successfully pinned by a Bryn Mawr or Oberlin team member.  

Moral of the Story?  Play to your strengths, UMPI, play to your strengths.  

 

Should the final stages of searches for college and university presidents be characterized by secrecy, with the names of the candidates only known to the search committee and a few others?  This topic has been getting an increasing amount of attention lately, as many faculty members grumble that they should not be deprived of learning, in advance, the identity of the person they will be burning in effigy six months later. 

Undaunted by this controversy, Auburn University’s Board of Trustees has taken the concept of the “secret search” to the next level.  Not only will their search for Auburn’s new President be conducted “under the radar,” the name of the successful candidate will not be shared even after the individual takes office.  Indeed, the University plans to keep secret the identity of the President for the entire duration of his or her term in office.

According to Board Chair Clement Gravenstone, the logic underlying this decision is straightforward:

“For at least the past decade college presidents have been lightning rods for negative publicity.  Hell, a president can get in trouble these days for just hugging the school mascot.  It’s ridiculous! 

“Well, you can’t get in trouble if no one knows who you are.  Our next President will function fully incognito.  The individual we hire will not have an office on campus.  The President will operate out of an underground bunker in an undisclosed location in Lee County that was once used by the Army to monitor A-Bomb tests and the CIA to put LSD in our water supply.  

“The President will never appear in public, but will hold monthly audio-only press conferences using an encrypted voice-alteration device.  All Presidential decisions will be implemented by the Provost or Campus Police, depending on the issue.  

“We realize that some folks might see the actions we are taking as inconsistent with a free and open society, and they would be right.  But the time has come for administrative leadership at Auburn to ‘go dark’, as it were, in the name of more ambitious goals.  Transparency had its day at our university, however briefly, and what did we get in return?  A victory over Purdue in the 2018 Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee, that’s what we got.  Pathetic.  Simply pathetic.  We can — and must — do better.  Our alumni and current students deserve nothing less.   

“Interviews for the position of President at Auburn University will begin…..sometime……somewhere.   Details about the search will be communicated at the appropriate time to those who need to know.  If you don’t hear anything from us, rest assured that you don’t need to know.  

“When a final decision is reached, white smoke will billow from the chimney of Samford Hall.  This is the only notification that the University community and the public will receive.”

Interested parties are invited to log in to Auburn’s PrezCam, a surveillance camera that monitors the chimney 24 hours a day.  

 

 

 

Sometimes it’s just hard to find a middle ground.

True Story:  Last week the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) removed a sign celebrating Gay Pride Month from outside its campus library.  The sign’s message: Being gay is like glitter.  It never goes away. — Lady Gaga.

University Life has learned that this action followed weeks of negotiation between UCA and gay-rights advocates that had ended in a stalemate.  According to a high-level administrator at the school, UCA had proposed an alternative Gay Pride sign for the library: Being gay is evil. You’ll go to hell for sure. — God.  A second alternative put forward by UCA: Gay? No way!

The administrator maintains that “the gay-rights advocates were not willing to compromise, so that left us no choice.  We had to move the sign.  This is Conway, Arkansas, for Pete’s sake!  We’re not a major metropolis like Little Rock or Fayetteville, where nobody thinks twice about wearing a rainbow bandana in public.”

The original sign now resides in front of a 24-hour convenience store on U.S. Highway 71 in De Queen, Arkansas, a town in the state’s southwestern, far-left corner.  “We thought this location would be a much better fit,” the administrator claims.  “The store’s beef jerky aisle also serves as a satellite campus for our MBA program, so at least some UCA students will see the sign when they come to class.”  

Not a perfect solution, to be sure.  But it’s a beginning. 

 

 

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently announced the termination of its resident MBA program as the school shifts its MBA focus to online education (no joke).

But hold on to your hats and tighten the drawstrings of your pajama bottoms, ladies and gents, because that’s only the beginning.  In September 2019 the University’s Medical School will also become a fully online operation.  No, you’re not hallucinating.  According to Wendell “Skip” Carrion, Dean of Medicine and Associate Vice President for Information Technology, this transformation will save the University and its students “a ton of money, with no loss in quality.”  

Carrion explains:

“So let’s talk about cadavers.  An intact human cadaver suitable for training purposes can cost as much as $2,000 plus a delivery fee.  On the other hand, you can make a perfectly decent proxy cadaver at home for less than $30 a pop using a 3D printer, heavy-duty construction paper, soybean paste, and a little dog fur.  It’s a no-brainer.

“Or consider medical residencies.   Currently, a typical residency lasts at least three years.  They’re stressful and exhausting for the trainees, leading to patients being treated by sleep-deprived physicians who mistake a pancreas for a spleen, an Adam’s apple for an elbow, or a plantar wart for a testicle.  In our four-month residency program, E-Z MedPass, freshly minted M.D.’s will stay at home and stream the first 10 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and all nine seasons of Scrubs.  Everything a practicing physician needs to know is in those shows.  You just have to pay attention.  Residents won’t need to spend countless hours in a hospital, where they are likely to be exposed to all sorts of germs and blood and oozing fluids, which can be incredibly sticky and gross.”

How will online students develop the interpersonal skills that are crucial for providing compassionate care to patients?  “No problemo, amigo,” says Carrion.  “Our YouTube library of adorable kitten videos is the largest in the Western hemisphere.  I promise you that our graduates will be unsurpassed at using a laser pointer to distract patients from their medical troubles, no matter how serious.  (‘So, you’ve developed a dry, hacking cough that just won’t go away?  That doesn’t sound……..Oooh, look!!!  There’s a red dot on the wall that keeps jumping around!!!  Let’s catch it!!!’).”

In a related announcement, the Dean indicated that in 2020 the accreditation of the University of Illinois Medical School will be switched from the American Medical Association to Yelp.  And the school will begin exploring the feasibility of offering a Twitter-based master’s degree in osteopathic medicine.

You know, this could work. 

 

 

So here’s the deal.  The College Board, which oversees the SAT, now calculates an “Adversity Score” for each test-taker.  The score incorporates data such as the crime rate, median income, and educational attainment of residents in the student’s neighborhood.  The higher your Adversity Score is on a scale of 1 to 100, the more disadvantaged you are presumed to be.  The reason for doing all this is to help colleges and universities interpret any given student’s SAT score.

But this week the stakes went up.  ACT, Inc., the College Board’s rival that administers its own standardized test for college aspirants, has developed the Impaired Performance Indicator (IPI), which reflects events that could affect a student’s state of mind in the 24 hours immediately preceding his or her taking the test.  

Here is a partial list of factors included in the IPI, along with their point values:

—  Falling face-down on a sidewalk due to intoxication: 62 points

—  Shattering one’s smartphone in the fall: 232 points

—  Experiencing a tsunami bowel disturbance as a result of food poisoning (e.g., spoiled burritos, tainted scallops, rancid Buffalo wings, Peeps of any variety): 30 points

—  Death of a pet (dog: 50 points; cat: 5 points; all others: 25 points)

—  Discovering that you or your significant other is pregnant (you: 612 points; significant other: 17 points)

—  Termination of a romantic relationship (initiated by you: 24 points; initiated by other party: 53 points; initiated by other party after you’ve dropped several hints: 6 points)

—  Your favorite sports team loses (last-minute defeat: 42 points; game wasn’t close: 9 points; you had borrowed money from someone with a homicide conviction to bet on the game: 154 points)

—  Your parents inform you they’re getting divorced (72 points)

—  Your parents inform you they’re getting married (72 points)

—  You find out that Blanche — your disagreeable older cousin in Topeka — is actually your mom (894 points)

—  You come to the sobering realization that human existence is nothing more than soul-crushing injustice sprinkled with random, senseless tragedy (500 points, reduced by 45 points if realization occurs while smoking marijuana)

According to an ACT spokesperson, the IPI is an infinitely more valuable tool for evaluating an individual’s standardized test scores than “the SAT’s silly little Adversity number.  It’s a slam dunk.  Game over.”

If you listen carefully, you can still hear the backboard rattling.

 

 

True Story:  Rhonda E. Davis, a 60-year-old grandmother of 11 who resided in the dorms at Cheyney University, recently graduated from the Pennsylvania school as its valedictorian.  As one Cheyney official put it, “She’s such an inspiration, not only to the students, but to all of us.  The students follow her around like Mother Goose.”

The lesson to be learned here has not been lost on enrollment-challenged campuses around the country.  They are now scrambling to recruit uplifting role models who might motivate potential students to attend their institutions.  Three examples:

— Bismarck State College (North Dakota):  In September 2019 the iconic crooners Michael Bublé and Josh Groban will begin their freshman year at Bismarck, majoring in Fine Arts.  According to Daphne Permafrost, BSC’s Vice President for Enrollment Management, “too many high school seniors in our state are convinced that they must attend college in New York City or California in order to break into the music business.  With Mr. Bublé and Mr. Groban on our campus,  we hope that North Dakota teenagers who awaken at 4:30 every morning to harvest baby Ski-Doo’s on their parents’ snowmobile farms in Osnabrock and Walhalla will think of us as they belt out tunes from The Great American Songbook in the barn.  We expect the presence of these two gentlemen will also generate a spike in the number of middle-aged housewives who matriculate at BSC.”

— Oral Roberts University (Oklahoma):  In January 2020 Jesus of Nazareth will enroll as a second-semester freshman, accompanied by 15 Advanced Placement credits in Religion and Theology. “Jesus is a natural for us,” says Dean of Admissions Hasgood Crell. “He’s well-known, super-inspirational, and never went to college.  The competition to get him was fierce!  Liberty University offered him Birkenstock sandals for eternity.  Bob Jones University promised to let his Mom live in a furnished apartment on the edge of the campus; she and Joseph separated three years ago.  But the Advanced Placement credits apparently did the trick.  Jesus wants to graduate in three years.  There aren’t many folks, or deities, who are keen on spending four years in Tulsa.”

Jesus will be majoring in Criminal Justice, which Crell says “is not surprising, given everything he went through with Pontius Pilate.”

— City College of New York (NYC):  This summer, Country House, the thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2019 Kentucky Derby, will become a Special Student at City College.  “It’s a stroke of genius,” claims CCNY Provost Charleston Cravat.  “Our students are often uncertain of their ability to succeed in college, and feel that the odds are against them.  Well, the odds of Country House winning the Derby were 65 to 1, and look what happened!  Of course, he’ll need help with his writing skills at the beginning of the semester, so we’re building a stall for him right in the middle of our Center for Learning Resources and hired a Certified Horse Whisperer who’s also an English Composition tutor.  Undergraduates are going to look at them working together and think, ‘if Country House can do this, so can I’!”  

Rhonda Davis, what hath thou wrought?

Clemson University has awarded its football coach Dabo Swinney a 10-year contract worth $93 million, a non-trivial amount that also happens to be the richest contract in the history of the sport (no joke). 

It’s also the richest contract in the history of “Dabo’s.”

According to the state’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (LLR), this contract is by far the most lucrative one ever given to a man or woman named “Dabo” in South Carolina, dating back to the state’s birth in 1788.  Second place belongs to Clyde “Dabo” Skeeterson, a tool-and-die maker in Stuckey, South Carolina whose current salary is $43,000 a year before taxes. 

In a press conference on Wednesday, LLR Director Emily Farr remarked, “we hope that Clemson’s contract with Mr. Swinney inspires every young Dabo — and Dabette — throughout our beautiful state to study hard, stay in school, get a paper route, attend church on a regular basis, and strive to be the best they can be.  Go Tigers!!!”

When NCAA football leads the way, we all win. 

Many of you may be familiar with The Registry, a company that provides colleges and universities with interim leaders for positions such as President, Provost, and Dean.  This service can come in very handy when Campus Police discover your Vice President for Academic Affairs selling crystal meth out of a minivan during the tailgate celebration prior to the Big Game on Homecoming Weekend.

Now, similar assistance is available for institutions battling the optics associated with serious declines in enrollment.  Letter Sweater, Inc. will strategically place student impersonators (18 to 22 years old) throughout your campus, giving visitors the impression that the grounds are teeming with enthusiastic, happy undergraduates.  Their presence can be vital when applicants and their families are exploring your school.  No one wants to see a sparsely populated college quadrangle on a glorious spring day.

Letter Sweater’s offerings are tailored to an institution’s distinctive needs.  For example:

— Level I Package:  500 young people who reflect the demographic and other characteristics (race, nationality, sex, height, weight, etc.) of your current student population

— Aspirational Sampler:  500 young people who reflect the characteristics of the student population you’d LIKE to have

— Diversity Plus:  A virtual rainbow of observable physical variation that will make your campus look like the United Nations in a Mardi Gras reveler’s fever dream

— Stereotyped Technology/Hard Science Assortment:  Contains 30% more Asians!

— Nothing But Denim:  Jeans, jeans, jeans.  Everyone’s in jeans.

— Let’s Do Lunch:  All faux students are outfitted by one or more of the following: Ralph Lauren, Dockers, Calvin Klein, FUBU, Vineyard Vines, L. L. Bean, Lands’ End.  (Available only in New England)

— Budget Option:  Same selections as above, except that inflatables are used instead of flesh-and-blood humans.  Each inflatable is anchored to the ground and can be adjusted to sway, or not sway, with the breeze.  (Note: There is an extra charge for walking or running poses.)

All impersonators (excluding those in the Budget Option) possess a working knowledge of your school and its history, and are prepared to answer visitors’ questions in a positive, affirming fashion.  Inflatables are equipped with a motion detector and electronic voice box, and are programmed to exclaim “I love this place!” whenever someone penetrates their Response Zone (i.e., comes within three feet). 

Your student body may be disappearing faster than pizza slices at a fraternity party, but it doesn’t have to look that way.  As a Letter Sweater staff member boasted to a reporter, “even alumni are fooled when they visit a campus we work with.”

Appearances can be deceiving.  And as Letter Sweater demonstrates, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

 

 

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently claimed that Democratic Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg “plays the piano, loves James Joyce’s Ulysses, and taught himself to speak Norwegian.”

University Life is not in a position to comment on Buttigieg’s keyboard skills or fluency in norsk, but there is no way he has read Ulysses.  That’s because no one has read Ulysses in its entirety since 1967, which is 15 years before Buttigieg was born. 

According to Joyce scholar Sterling Pwesh, Professor Emeritus of English at Bowdoin College, “more people have falsely claimed to have read Ulysses than any other novel in history.  The reality is that a greater number of individuals purchased Michelle Obama’s memoir on the day it was published than have read Ulysses in the 97 years it has been available in book form.” 

Pwesh notes that “what almost always happens is that someone starts reading Joyce’s novel for the sex passages, but then realizes that it’s not worth the endless slog through the narrative in order to get to the juicy parts.  Most would-be readers give up by page 27, and nobody is left after page 60.  Vivid descriptions of sexual high jinks are now so readily available in fiction that Joyce has become superfluous.  Heck, it won’t be long before you can satisfy the majority of your carnal needs by simply going to a local grocery store and shoplifting a box of Post’s Scratch-and-Sniff Shredded Wheat.” (Note: This product should be available in selected locations by the end of 2019.  Check the Post website for more details).  

But doesn’t Ulysses remain a staple in college literature courses?  “Not really,” says Pwesh.  “For one thing, Joyce is an extremely dead white guy, which works against him being required reading in the current era.  Also, no professor would dare assign this 730-page brick of a book in a world of 40-second attention spans.  Once in a while, in my Irish Cinema course, I’ll have the class watch the 1967 film version of Ulysses, along with the 1959 Disney classic, Darby O’Gill and the Little People starring Sean Connery.  The students write a final paper comparing the psychodynamics of Leopold Bloom and Darby O’Gill.  It works pretty well.”

University Life reporters interviewed dozens of Buttigieg’s classmates from Harvard and Pembroke College in England, where he obtained his master’s degree.  None could recall ever seeing him with a copy of Ulysses, even after being shown various covers of the volume in an attempt to jog their memories.  One acquaintance who preferred to remain anonymous remarked, “If Pete had been carrying it around, someone would have noticed.  It’s a pretty fat book, you know.”

Is it possible that Buttigieg has confused Ulysses with Finnegan’s Wake, another Joyce classic?  “Impossible,” says Pwesh.  “There is no credible evidence that ANYONE has ever read Finnegan’s Wake.  This tome resides in hundreds of thousands of libraries around the world, but not once has it been checked out.”

Candidate Buttigieg, the ball is in your court. What say you?

 

Don’t act surprised.

You had to see this coming.

In August 2019, Arizona State University will become the first school in the country to have a part-time President. 

According to Ron Shoopman, Chair of the Arizona Board of Regents, appointing an Adjunct President will further solidify ASU’s reputation as THE innovation leader in U. S. higher education.  “ASU has already staked its claim as the nation’s foremost provider of online education; our number of online students now exceeds the population of the pre-Brexit European Union.  And next year ASU will start enrolling dolphins in its associate’s degree program in Marine Biology, as we enter the Brave New World of non-human mammalian education.   So it’s only fitting that Arizona State should be the first institution to employ an Adjunct President.  The cost savings will be enormous.”

Shoopman makes a compelling case.  Consider the following:

—  The President’s position will be 20 hours per week, eliminating the need for ASU to provide health insurance.

—  The President will share an office with seven adjuncts in the English Department.  The current President’s office will be converted into a “maker-space” lab for students in ASU’s Lego Design master’s program.

—  While a starting salary has yet to be determined, it will not exceed $60,000.  (This figure includes compensation for a four-course-per-year teaching load.)  A one-time bonus of up to $5000 will be awarded if the President succeeds in expanding the Marine Biology program to porpoises, manatees, and igneous rocks within two years.  “This last one is a stretch goal,” notes Shoopman.  “But it’s worth shooting for.  There are a gazillion rocks out there, virtually none with degrees.”

—  The President and Provost will share a parking space, alternating their days on campus during the week.  The Provost, a full-time employee, will work from home on Fridays. 

Shoopman was animated when discussing the rationale for having an Adjunct President.  “Let’s face it, this place pretty much runs itself these days.  We could start an online bachelor’s program in Mouse Droppings Analysis tomorrow and have 250 students enrolled within a month.  It’s like having a license to print money.  Who needs a full-time President with an Ivy League pedigree just to count the bucket-loads of cash flowing in?  Hell, my 19-year-old nephew could do this job, and Corky doesn’t have the brains it would take to turn his chair around and face the ocean if he worked as a lifeguard.”

Applications for the position of ASU President are due May 1st.  You must have a high school diploma and no criminal convictions in the past three years.  Two letters of recommendation are required, neither of which can be from a relative or a pet.  Please send a urine sample in a tightly sealed container along with your cover letter.  (Important: Do not put your cover letter in the container.)  Preference will be given to applicants who can defeat an igneous rock in a best-of-three checkers match.

Thank you, ASU, for advancing the cause of both adjunct faculty rights and cost-conscious financial stewardship.