University Life

The Senate Committee on Curricular Affairs at Penn State University has passed a resolution that calls for the school to stop using gendered terms such as “freshman,” “junior,” and “senior.”  The resolution recommends that the descriptors “first-year,” “second-year,” “third-year,” and “fourth-year” be employed instead (Daily Collegian, May 5th online). 

Inspired by this faculty decision, colleges and universities across the country are transitioning to less volatile vocabularies when referring to their student bodies.  Here are five examples from the past two months:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Freshmen → Sentient Meat 1

Sophomores → Sentient Meat 2

Juniors → Sentient Meat 3

Seniors → Sentient Meat 4

Oral Roberts University

Freshmen → Jesus Kittens

Sophomores → Madonna Meerkats

Juniors → Lieges of the Lord

Seniors → Satan Stabbers

Harvard University

Freshmen → The Grateful

Sophomores → The Arrogant

Juniors → The Gratefully Arrogant

Seniors → Platinum Donors

U.S. Military Academy

Freshmen → Water Pistols

Sophomores → Super Soakers

Juniors → Surface-to-Air Missiles

Seniors → Cannon Fodder

University of Phoenix

Freshmen → Level 1 Borrowers

Sophomores → “How the F**K Am I Ever Going to Pay All This Back?” Insomniacs

Juniors → 7-Eleven Stick-Up Artists

Seniors → Inmates

May is not over.  There’s still time to call an emergency meeting of your school’s Faculty Senate.  

 

The authors of a recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay argue that the term “flagship” should no longer be used to describe certain universities.  They assert that the word “has outlived whatever purpose it once had, and now clearly does more harm than good” (May 14th issue).  

Welcome to higher education Whack-A-Mole. 

Academicians breastfeed their young on jargon, and should “flagship” leave us, one can be certain that a new, equally obnoxious term will replace it within a few weeks.

To wit, consider the following institutional descriptors that have gained currency in the past several months:

Dumpster Fires:  Small, non-elite, liberal-arts colleges that were in serious financial trouble before the pandemic, and now are in danger of flaming out entirely.  

Monster Trucks:  Large state universities that dominate their competition in key domains (e.g., University of Alabama → football). 

Bullet Trains:  Schools that offer an Acela’s worth of fast-track degrees, such as a bachelor’s in 2 years, a BA/MA combo in 3, or the BS/PhD/MD trifecta in 4. 

Mushroom Clouds:  Colleges where over 40% of the male faculty have been accused of sexual assault AND the cafeteria workers are on strike AND the President has been caught having separate affairs with both the Dean of Arts & Sciences and the Dean’s spouse AND there are at least 3 buildings on campus named after slaveholding Confederate generals and one named after a Nazi war criminal. 

Tricycles:  Schools where nearly 80% of all course offerings are remedial. 

Pelotons:  Universities that specialize in graduate certificate programs — highly expensive, and you end up where you started.  

Rusted Oil Drums:  Colleges with a lot of elderly, heavily tenured faculty who are about to be dumped overboard.  

Septic Atomizers:  Institutions that are transitioning with great speed to a predominantly online curriculum (known as Zoom Sewers west of the Mississippi).  

Let’s face it:  Naming stuff is higher education’s core competency.  

 

A recent essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education — “The Art of (Successfully) Appealing a Manuscript Rejection” (May 3rd online) — presents strategies for persuading journal editors to reconsider their negative decision concerning your submission.   

The essay is a worthwhile effort, but its value is diminished by the self-imposed limitation it appears to operate under: only ethical strategies are explored.  What about approaches that might be used by authors who are comfortable with wrongdoing?  If journals are going to be truly committed to diversity and inclusion, these scholars should not be left outside the tent of publication.  Here are three strategies available to authors who embrace a “by any means necessary” philosophy of achieving tenure and promotion.

The Threat of Scandal

Inform the journal editor that failure to reverse the rejection decision will result in your claiming that a sordid sexual affair took place between the two of you several years ago, an affair that was coerced by the editor and left you with permanent, and extensive, emotional scarring.  You describe in detail your plans to “spill the beans” to relevant authorities at the editor’s home institution.  

It doesn’t matter if your claim is true or not.  Mounting a defense against such an accusation can be costly, consuming the better part of one’s career, and the editor may not want to risk that outcome.  HINT:  Including a grainy photo of two naked but unidentifiable bodies tussling in bed can enhance the effectiveness of this strategy.  The typical editor will not want to go through the humiliating process of proving that none of those dimpled buttocks belong to him or her. 

Rejection Jujitsu

Respond to the rejection letter as if it were an acceptance letter.  This is easier than it sounds.  First, have a friend who is a skilled forger prepare a fake acceptance letter from the editor on the journal’s letterhead.  Then return that document to the editor, indicating your gratitude for the positive decision.  Make sure to say how much you’re looking forward to seeing your submission in print.

Most editors are so overwhelmed by the unrelenting burden of managing the review process that they won’t notice the deception, and they’ll end up publishing your manuscript without revision.  By the way, this is the strategy that Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon used to get his first paper on “satisficing” published in 1956.

Cape Fear

Threatening physical harm to an editor’s family could produce an overreaction, but offering an ambiguous comment about the editor’s pet bichon is a solid bet to hit the “sweet spot” of influence.  For example: “I’m so disappointed that my paper was rejected.  By the way, I drove by your house yesterday and saw Mr. Fluffy playing in the front yard.  Your kids must love him dearly.  He’s such an adorable, friendly puppy, and more than eager to accept treats from strangers.  Dogs are so vulnerable at that age.”

A bit creepy, you say?  Perhaps.  But you need to ask yourself:  do you want a Nobel Prize or not?  It’s your call.  

 

 

In early April, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order prohibiting public colleges in the state from requiring students to get vaccinated for COVID-19 (Texas Tribune online, April 9th).  

Yesterday, the plot thickened. 

The Governor has now issued a second executive order, which mandates that every student attending a public college in Texas “must carry a handgun while on campus.” 

“It just makes sense,” Abbott insisted in an Associated Press interview.  “People who contract the COVID virus almost always become rabid within three days, foaming at the mouth like a freshly poured glass of Guinness Stout.  What are you supposed to do if you encounter a raving, infected student as you walk across the school quad — just say hello and let him bite your neck in half?  I don’t think so.  What you do is shoot the poor bastard between the eyes.  It puts the diseased victim out of his misery, and it saves your ass.  

“Killing with compassion is much safer than taking some goddamned Communist vaccine that’ll screw up your genetic code, causing your future children to look like furry tadpoles with five nostrils and elbows where their eye sockets should be.

“In Texas, we’re all about keeping kids safe.”

Governor, we’ll tip our Stetsons to that sentiment any day. 

TRUE FACT:  In the aftermath of its worst cheating scandal in decades, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is terminating a program that gave a second chance to cadets who violated the school’s honor code.  Expulsion is now back on the table after the first offense.  (New York Times online, April 16th)

Among those who disagree with this decision, perhaps the most surprising is Vice Admiral Sean Buck, Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.  

“This action sends exactly the wrong message,” claims Buck, whose school jettisoned its honor code over a decade ago.  “Deception, cheating, deceit, and duplicity win wars.  Did Eisenhower provide the Nazis with the Allies’ plans to invade Normandy on D-Day?  No, he did not.  Did Truman call Hirohito and say, ‘Mr. Emperor, tell your countrymen to get out the charcoal and toss a few hot dogs on the grill, because tomorrow there will be some major-league barbecuing going on in Hiroshima’?  HELL, NO!

“If the soldiers of tomorrow don’t learn to lie and dissemble while they’re in school, when ARE they supposed to learn these crucial skills — on the battlefield, with their throat exposed to the business end of an enemy’s bayonet, and it’s too late? 

“I’m sick and tired of all the bulls**t I hear nowadays about how important it is to be honest and ‘transparent’.  ‘Transparent’, my ass!  You don’t defeat the Taliban by sending them a text message with the date and time of your next drone attack on a stronghold in Helmand province.

“West Point, I’m begging you.  Please abandon this misguided endeavor.  Do the right thing: consign your honor code to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.  Cheating 101 should be a required course at your institution.  Let’s get back to winning some wars.”

 

 

The 40 folding chairs are arranged in neat rows in the Parish Room of St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church in downtown Boston, near Government Center.  Nearly all of them are filled on this Wednesday evening at 7:30 pm by men and women in sharp, professional, business attire.  No one looks even the slightest bit scruffy.

A man, probably in his late 40s, stands up and walks to the lectern at the front of the room.  

“Hi, my name is Frank, and I’m…..I’m a…..I’m a rankings addict.”

“Welcome, Frank,” the other attendees respond warmly. 

This is the weekly meeting of Rankings Anonymous (RA), a loosely organized group of high-level enrollment and media-relations administrators from colleges and universities throughout the greater Boston area.

Every one of them is addicted to institutional rankings. 

Frank (not his real name) continues.  “Four months ago I hit bottom.  Hell, I hit the sub-basement of bottom.  We had just published an ad in The Chronicle of Higher Education bragging that Toilet Studies Quarterly had ranked us #3 in New England in enrolling 1st-generation college students from public high schools that lack indoor plumbing.  I was so ashamed.  When I got home that night, not even the dog would look at me.  He can smell when I’ve been ranking.”

“Amen, brother,” comes the reply from several in the audience.  

Ranking addiction has become the opioid epidemic of the higher education community.  It is an insidious illness, with a predictable gateway drug: a high ranking of one’s institution on a dimension publicized by U. S. News & World Report.  

“It all started in 2017 when they ranked our cafeteria’s French toast the 3rd best in the Northeast,” says Frank.  “Oh God, what a rush!  I couldn’t sleep for four days.  I’ve been chasing that high ever since.”

The American Psychiatric Association places ranking addiction in the same category as sex addiction in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  Both are incredibly difficult to treat, and the relapse rate is high.  

Frank notes that he had once gone 7 months without using rankings in his school’s advertising: “I felt so clean, so pure, almost virginal.”

But then he was notified by Splash, an official publication of the United States Navy, that his college’s ranking as a “welcoming place for veterans who had served on cruise-missile submarines” had risen from 72 to 47.

“I became so aroused that I immediately drove home and…..well, let’s just say that the next morning my wife went out and bought me flowers.”

Frank’s ecstasy was short-lived.  Within a week, he was ordering billboard advertisements filled with rankings of his school for the entire length of New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway (e.g., “#8 in Outdoor Ads Among All Colleges on the East Coast”).  

“I loathed myself.  I really and truly did.”  Murmurs of “we’ve all been there” could be heard at the back of the room. 

Frank shares with the group that he’s thinking about leaving higher education to become a shepherd, a job where there is nothing to rank. 

“Don’t go Little Bo-Peep on us, Frank,” someone in the audience says.  “Let the Lord be your shepherd, and you’ll find the strength you need.  Remember: our chapter has the 2nd-lowest relapse rate of any RA group in Massachusetts.”

A collective gasp, then silence.  

 

TRUE FACT:  Every member of the University of Virginia volleyball staff was fired three weeks ago, with UVA Athletics Director Carla Williams saying that she was “unable to comment on the details.”  The team will resume play next season.  (The Cavalier Daily, March 18 online).

Now the mystery has deepened.

Yesterday, all of the team’s volleyballs — over 60 in number — received termination notices.  This includes volleyballs with game experience, as well as those that had only participated in practice sessions, along with unused balls that had never been taken out of the box.

“This is a real head-scratcher,” observes veteran Las Vegas volleyball oddsmaker Isidore “Izzy” Del Fuego.  “It raises the question of what did these volleyballs know, and when did they know it?  Are all of them being punished for the actions of a few?  Or is this just a case of one volleyball looking like every other volleyball, making it impossible to identify who the real offenders are without a ball coming forward?”

Volleyballs are notorious for their unwillingness to “jump the net” — the sport’s slang for snitching on one’s peers — and it is rumored that UVA police deflated several balls in an attempt to intimidate the others into speaking.  

Adding to the intrigue is the discovery this morning of a deceased UVA volleyball with multiple puncture wounds in a wooded area on the outskirts of Charlottesville.  It is unclear whether the wounds were self-inflicted, and no note was found in the immediate vicinity.  

Del Fuego is confident that the truth will eventually come out in this noir saga.  “It always does,” he asserts.  “I guarantee you, there is a volleyball out there with a story to tell, and it won’t be pretty.”

 

Irritated faculty members routinely take no-confidence votes in their leaders, such as the one that preceded the recent resignation of the embattled President at Oregon State University. 

Unfortunately, as a linguistic device the phrase “no confidence” is lame.  It lacks intensity, evoking an image of disinterested parents watching their nerd-child attempt a free throw in a middle-school basketball game and thinking, “yep, we have no confidence that our kid is gonna make this shot.”  Yawn.  

With this limitation in mind, the Faculty Senate at the University of Vermont has decided to bring some bona fide roid rage to the table.  On Wednesday it introduced a hard-hitting no-confidence indicator that is destined to become the gold standard for such judgments at colleges and universities across the country.  

Dubbed the Get the Hell Out of Dodge Scale, it allows faculty to repudiate a deficient President at any one of eight levels of intensity:

1.  “You Suck at Your Job”

2.  “You Suck at Your Job, and You’re Arrogant”

3.  “You Suck at Your Job, You’re Arrogant, and You Lie Most of the Time”

4.  “You Suck at Your Job, You’re Arrogant, and You Lie ALL of the Time”

5.  “All of the above, plus You Drive a Cherry-Red Tesla with ‘The Prez’ Stenciled on its Doors, Trunk, Hood, and Roof”

6.  “All of the above, plus You Once Told a Reporter that You Consider Tenured Professors to be the Dinosaur Poop of the University: Ancient and Useless”  

7.  “All of the above, plus You Helped Drug Lord El Chapo Escape from Prison Twice”

8.  “You’re Satan; We Recommend that the Board of Regents Strip You Naked, Tie You to a Stake in the Desert, Cover Your Body with Honey, and Let the Fire Ants Do Their Thing.  This Event Should be Celebrated Annually as a University Holiday, and include a Parade and Student/Faculty Softball Game”

Laminated copies of the scale may be obtained from the University of Vermont Faculty Senate.

 

Michigan State University recently announced that Rocket Mortgage will become the “presenting sponsor” of its men’s basketball team.  Throughout MSU’s Breslin Student Events Center (where home games are played), the team will be known as the “MSU Spartans Presented by Rocket Mortgage” (MSU Athletics Website, updated March 12th).  

The funding bonanza for MSU resulting from this agreement has not been lost on Our Lady of the Sycamores College, a small Catholic women’s institution in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

On Wednesday the school revealed that it had entered into a relationship with divinity powerhouse Almighty God, in which the college’s lacrosse team, the Saplings, will become the “Sycamore Saplings Sponsored by the Virgin Mary.”

According to OLSC President Monica Xambor-O’Banyon, “the Virgin Mary is a huge fan of women’s lacrosse — she played as a teenager and felt empowered by the experience.  Her fortune exceeds that of Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife.  Mary spends very little money on herself, though she does collect 16th-century jade rosaries and uses an exotic Ecuadorian skin cream made from angels’ tears and vanilla yogurt.  I can promise you that our team’s locker room is going to get a serious upgrade next year.”

When asked if the terms of the Virgin’s sponsorship mandate chastity on the part of team members during the season, the President indicated that privacy laws prohibited her from commenting.  However, she did note — with a wink — that Michigan State’s agreement with Rocket Mortgage does not require its players to make a down payment on a house in order to remain with the team.  

Diversity/Equity Statement for Proposal TNK-412: Role of Peptide Ganglia in Digestive Processes of the Arctic Snow Worm

Submitted by:  Dr. Frederick Yarf

Institution:  University of Iowa (Department of Biology)

Date:  March 19, 2021

At first glance it might not appear that the proposed research project could shed significant light on critical issues of racial privilege and social justice currently facing our nation. 

Such a conclusion would be premature.

Please consider the following:

—  The arctic snow worm’s natural habitat is the region surrounding the North Pole.  This area is largely composed of snow and ice, both of which are almost entirely white.  Why is that?  The digestive system of the snow worm could hold the key to answering this question. 

—  Polar bears, whose diet consists of snow worms, are also white.  What’s up with that?  There seems to be an emerging pattern here.  Archaeological evidence suggests that, approximately 2,500 years ago, polar bears drove penguins and other birds of color out of the northernmost region of the Arctic Circle.  Was this “power play” a natural consequence of the massive size of the bears, or were the dynamics more complex?  Focus groups will be held with polar bears, snow worms, and penguins to explore this issue in depth. 

—  Finally, there is the long-standing mystery of what motivated the Beatles to record their legendary “White Album” in 1968.  Were snow worms involved?  What about polar bears?  The research team will interview Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison (JL and GH via Skype) concerning this matter. 

Thank you for considering my application.  

Respectfully submitted,

Frederick Yarf, Ph.D.