University Life

Perhaps it’s just the endorphin high they’re experiencing from qualifying for the NCAA College Football Playoff this year, but yesterday the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan took one of the boldest moves to increase institutional productivity that higher education has seen in over a generation. 

Beginning on January 15, 2022, every dean at the University will be authorized to summarily fire up to five tenured faculty members in their school, with no justification required.  “In essence,” says Michigan President Mark Schlissel, “we’re implementing a version of the peremptory challenge process that is employed in jury selection, where an attorney can remove a prospective juror without having to give a reason.  We strongly believe that contemporary public universities desperately need such a policy if they are to survive.”

For their part, Michigan deans are beside themselves with eager anticipation.  As one dean put it, “The amount of time I spend dealing with a few annoying faculty members is soul-killing.  I usually dread returning to work after the holiday break, but this year I can’t wait to get back.  I haven’t been this excited since Pamela Turnstile agreed to have sex with me in 9th grade.  Oops, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned her name.”  

Experts predict that over 90% of all terminated faculty will fall into one of five categories:

Scribes:  Professors who send emails of interminable length to campus administrators, protesting anything and everything, and demanding that corrective action be taken.  No issue is too large, too small, or too inane.  (“Once again, I have been assigned a classroom for my Fractals Seminar that does not have moveable desks.  [See attached course schedule from the Registrar, along with a photograph of the desks.]  This makes it impossible for me to explore in depth the Mandelbrot Set with my students, and will result in disastrous learning consequences.  If you refer to my email of April 8, 2017, you will find that….”)

Annual Report Blowfish:  Faculty who document in writing, and in maddening detail, every conceivable activity they have engaged in that, in their fevered little brain, strengthens their case for a merit raise.  (“Please note, in the ‘Service to the University’ category, that I attended 5 men’s basketball games this fall.  I stayed to the end of every game, even though 3 of the games were lopsided and 2 went into double-overtime on nights that I had papers to grade.  Attached are photocopies of my ticket stubs.”)

RBFs:  Despite the sexist label (“Resting B***h Face”), this category can represent any gender.  At department and committee meetings, as well as town-hall sessions, these individuals constantly display the pained, disgusted facial expression of someone who’s had a small cactus permanently shoved up their rectum.  Their sour demeanor depresses everyone in the immediate vicinity.  Even colleagues who are typically happy and optimistic start to cry.  RBFs can say “that plan will never work” in 12 languages.  

The Passionately Confused:  At public meetings on campus, when the time comes for brief questions from the audience, the Passionately Confused introduce their query with a full-blown speech that is unrelated to the topic at hand.  They ignore polite requests (“sit down, Harold”) to wrap things up.  Indeed, such requests only solidify their resolve to continue.  (“I will NOT be silenced.  The failure to provide a vegan dessert option in the faculty dining room only serves to underscore the Administration’s indifference to the sanctity of all life.  This is not a University; it’s a cesspool of animal carcasses and saturated fat ruled by a tyrant!”)

The Profsplainers:  Relentlessly defending the abysmal student evaluations they receive year after year, these faculty claim that students will not recognize the value and brilliance of the pedagogy they have experienced until after they graduate.  (“I only publicly humiliate students now so they won’t make the same mistakes later on the job.  The bitter tears they shed today are a down payment on a successful tomorrow.”)  

The University of Michigan Faculty Senate has threatened to sue the school’s President and Board of Regents on the day the new policy goes into effect.

“Go ahead,” says Schlissel, glancing at the Clint Eastwood poster on his office wall.

“Make my day.”

 

 

Much useful advice is contained in Dr. Maria Wisdom’s recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay, “5 Factors to Consider Before You Leave Faculty Life” (November 17th online), but a few critical topics are left unaddressed.  For readers who are thinking about departing academia for a new career, here are 5 additional issues to keep in mind:

Normal people don’t talk like college professors.  For example, you will encounter very few accountants, bartenders, or X-ray technicians who use the phrase “lived experience.”  If you employ that phrase in their presence, they will tilt their head and gaze at you like a puzzled Cocker Spaniel.  They’ll do this because they’ll regard the phrase as stupidly redundant.  The reason they will believe this is because the phrase is stupidly redundant.  Suggestion:  During your first few months out of academia, don’t speak.  At all.  Take some time to reacquaint yourself with the English language.  

If you must talk, refrain from bragging that you seldom watch television, or — even worse — that you don’t even own a television.  Most people watch a LOT of television.  In fact, many families who can barely afford a bag of Cheetos and a toilet brush own a flat-screen TV that is larger than your garage door.  If these folks find out that you don’t watch TV, they’ll think you’re weird.  And they’ll be right.  What is WRONG with you?  

Expect to feel uncomfortable and have awkward interactions when you inform your academic friends that you are now making a living selling houseboat insurance.  You will see sadness in their eyes — sadness for you, not for themselves.  Don’t make a pathetic attempt to overcompensate by telling them that you have discovered a level of satisfaction in insuring houseboats that you never experienced as a faculty member.  They won’t believe you.  Because you won’t believe you.  Embrace your pain.  It’s okay to cry in public.  

When meeting people who don’t know your background in academia, decide how you’re going to react if they start telling cruel, hurtful jokes about college professors.  Will you inform them of what you used to do and then chastise them?  Will you be silent?  Will you join in and participate in the trashing of your former profession?  In race-relations terminology, choosing the second or third option is known as “passing.”  Consult the relevant literature for recommendations on how to pass successfully.  You might need to abandon your family of origin. 

If selling houseboat insurance works out well for you, make sure to purchase a high-end sports car and pay a visit to your old campus.  Ask your colleagues how their Zoom and hybrid classes are going, and inquire about the progress of the committee they’re on that’s responsible for redoing all the worksheets for community college transfers.  Show them your personalized “EX-PROF” license plate.  Casually smoke an expensive cigar in front of them, regardless of your gender.  Tell your friends in the English Department that it doesn’t matter if references to bacon and chutney in the novels of Edith Wharton foreshadow major themes in the mature work of Philip Roth.  It really doesn’t.

And for God’s sake, please go out and buy a big-ass TV.  You’ve earned it. 

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay, University of Pennsylvania Professor Jonathan Zimmerman states that “I’ll retire when my institution pledges to hire a full-time, tenure-track professor in my place” (November 8th online).  

Dr. Zimmerman is the latest in a long line of college faculty who have offered to “go emeritus” in exchange for a specific concession from the administration.  Here’s a sampling of some of the more notable episodes, and how they turned out:

Gerald McTillis, College of William and Mary, 1807:  Said he would retire if given the opportunity to engage in a single-shot duel with the chairman of his department.  McTillis had accused the chair of assigning him 7:00 am classes, 5 days a week, for over 35 years. Outcome:  Professor McTillis passed away suddenly, but not unexpectedly, on May 27, 1807.

Spencer Woburn, Cornell University, 1891:  Would not retire unless the names of the four members of the Tenure & Promotion Committee whose negative votes prevented him from being promoted to full professor in 1880 were made public.  Outcome:  Request denied.  Curiously, between 1892 and 1894, all seven members of the 1880 T & P Committee disappeared without a trace.  For the next several years visitors often claimed that the barn on Professor Woburn’s farm “smelled funny.”

Celeste Wiggins-Talbot, Gettysburg College, 1937:  Demanded that Professor Navin Teasdale be blindfolded whenever he was on campus.  Wiggins-Talbot claimed that Teasdale stared at her breasts incessantly during department meetings, refusing to make eye contact.  “I don’t want the next generation of female professors at Gettysburg to encounter the same boorish behavior that I did,” she said.  Outcome:  A compromise was reached, which stipulated that Teasdale would never be permitted to have cataract surgery, even if he needed it. 

Maynard Nesbitt, University of Mississippi, 1952:  Promised to forgo his school-funded pension if the University agreed to show the film “Birth of a Nation” at freshman orientation every year, with Nesbitt coming out of retirement to give a post-screening lecture entitled, “D. W. Griffith: The Persecuted Prophet.”  Outcome:  Proposal rejected, by a 14-11 vote of the Board of Trustees. 

Gretchen Harvesta, Smith College, 2016:  Refused to retire until the school’s Business Office reimbursed her for a 2009 lunch she had at Chick-fil-A in the Charlotte International Airport, where she had a layover on the way back from a research conference in Puerto Rico.  A valid receipt for the meal had been submitted by Harvesta.  Outcome:  Request denied, due to Chick-fil-A’s public opposition to same-sex marriage.  The denial noted that the airport’s food court had an easily accessible McDonald’s, which also served a chicken sandwich.   

Percy Oddson, Emory University, 2018:  Oddson attempted to take a University-owned, window-mounted air conditioner out of his office when he vacated the premises upon retirement.  “Toby and I share a lot of memories, and even more secrets,” he asserted when apprehended by Campus Police in the parking lot.  “We should be together.”  Outcome:  Professor Oddson was admitted to DeKalb County Mental Hospital, where he currently resides.

NOTE:  You can visit Dr. Oddson at DeKalb from 2 to 4 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.  He enjoys doing crossword and jigsaw puzzles with family and friends, and collecting photographs of vintage air conditioners. 

 

TRUE FACT:  A consulting architect recently resigned from the Design Review Committee at the University of California at Santa Barbara after the school announced plans to erect a 1.68-million-square-foot dormitory in which 94% of its single-occupancy rooms would have no windows.  According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the building “would be one of the densest residential-housing units on the planet” (November 12th, p. 8).

An early hint that something might be amiss with the proposed facility was the fact that the architectural firm hired for the project, NanoSpace, also designs poultry enclosures for Perdue Farms, one of the largest chicken-processing companies in North America.

NanoSpace Managing Partner, Van Von Vindervun, acknowledges that this is the firm’s first venture into student housing: “The way we see it, the only real difference between a chicken and a college student is that one has feathers and the other doesn’t.  They both happen to be bipeds and hopelessly stupid, and neither is bothered all that much by standing around in its own excrement, especially when drugged.  

“All we really have to do is figure out how to give students enough space in their living quarters to hunch over smartphones.  That’s not exactly an intimidating architectural challenge.

“And just for the record, exit interviews indicate that OSHA only received five complaints in 2020 from chickens residing in Perdue facilities designed by NanoSpace. We’re proud of that.”

As you should be.  

TO:  All Faculty, Students, and Staff

RE:  I’m Sorry

I’m not sure what possessed me last week to show a 1952 episode of Amos ‘n’ Andy to students in my course on “Black Americans on Network TV in the Early 1950s.”  Perhaps it was because I was teaching a course on “Black Americans on Network TV in the Early 1950s.”

In any event, it is now clear that my decision has ignited a firestorm of controversy on campus.  Accordingly, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the following groups:

—  The American Gem Society, which is not pleased that Sapphire, the wife of Kingfish, is portrayed in the episode as being somewhat strident and shrewish.  This has depressed sales of sapphire jewelry across the country.  

—  The National Mackerel Association, which objects to the episode’s depiction of Kingfish (aka George Stevens) as someone who is constantly hatching get-rich-quick schemes.  In reality, king mackerels (aka kingfish) are famous in the marine community for their integrity and honesty, second only to blue marlin.    

— Uber and Lyft Drivers, who correctly note that Amos’s occupation in the series is that of taxicab driver, with no mention ever being made of Uber or Lyft transportation services.   Although it is true that neither Uber nor Lyft existed in 1952, that’s a poor excuse for the writers not anticipating that they would exist in the future. 

—  The American Bar Association, which is upset that the only lawyer featured in the episode — Algonquin J. Calhoun — is black.  As ABA President Reginald Turner informed me in a registered letter, “the great majority of attorneys in the United States in 1952 were white.  An impressionable white child who watches this episode might wonder, ‘are there any lawyers out there who look like me?  I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore.  I’d rather sell car insurance for a living, or just kill my parents and live on what I inherit’.”

— The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE), which is appalled at the failure of the Mystic Knights of the Sea, the fraternal group Amos and Andy belong to, to faithfully observe Robert’s Rules of Order during their meetings.  “Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t,” observes BPOE Board Chairman James McQuillan.  “It makes all of us look bad.”

— The Mothers-in-Law Congress of North America, which maintains that Americans’ negative view of mothers-in-law can be traced back to the character of Mama, Kingfish’s nemesis on the show.  As Congress President Edna Yentsin put it, “Mama was totally justified in being highly critical of her son-in-law, given those get-rich-quick schemes he was always hatching.”

—  The American Kennel Club, which claims that canines rarely appear on Amos ‘n’ Andy.  As AKC President Dennis Sprung yelled at me over the phone, “it’s one thing to have a TV show with no cats.  Cats suck.  But to have no dogs, not even strays?  That’s downright un-American.  Shame on Amos ‘n’ Andy, and shame on you for exposing students to this anti-pooch propaganda.  Somewhere, a bichon is crying alone in its crate, you bastard.”

If I have failed to apologize to anyone I should have, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Dr. Terrance Nasely-Smythe 

Professor of Cultural Anthropology                                                                                   

 

 

The last thing that Eleanor and Wilbur Fracas had expected to encounter on their foliage drive in St. Johnsbury, Vermont three weeks ago was a representative of a species widely thought to be extinct:  a tenured Humanities professor. 

The Fracases, a retired couple from Boston, had just turned onto Gurnsey Road, an old logging route in Snaffles Gap State Forest, when Eleanor noticed a naked, furry biped in the distance, running through the woods. 

“We immediately stopped the car and walked over to where I had seen the creature, but of course it was gone by then,” says Eleanor, still visibly shaken by the incident.  “There was evidence of a small campfire, as well as a weathered copy of The Essays of John Ruskin and what appeared to be the yellowed, brittle remains of several pages of lecture notes.  We also found a pipe, a pouch of loose tobacco, and a tweed jacket that had seen better days. 

“A few yards away we discovered some scat, which a park ranger said could have been a human’s.  The scat was tiny and pebbly-like, so it might have come from a rabbit.  But Humanities faculty are notorious for being chronically constipated, so I’m pretty sure it was a man or woman who produced those little nuggets.”

University of Vermont Provost Frida Pinth seriously doubts that Eleanor saw a Humanities faculty member:  “No one has seen a tenured professor in those disciplines in Vermont since 2014, two years after the state legislature established a rigorous post-tenure review process for faculty in all fields except Neuroscience and E-sports.  It’s possible that someone could have walked to St. Johnsbury from Dartmouth using the New Hampshire-Vermont Underground Railroad, but it seems unlikely.  That’s a distance of almost 60 miles.”

Eleanor Fracas’s response:  “Dammit, I know what I saw.  Did I mention that it was wearing elbow patches?” 

 

 

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article explores the challenge of developing empathy for students who fail to get vaccinated for COVID or resist wearing a mask in class (October 7th online).

Guess what?  Research indicates that empathy is a struggle for faculty interacting with students in a variety of contexts, not just those that are COVID-related.  A national survey jointly sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and University Life finds that professors across the country are having a difficult time feeling compassion for their students.  Consider the following 1st-person accounts:

—  Nathan S., DePaul University:  “Gary, a sophomore, showed up at my class in a full body cast yesterday.  Over the weekend he had been struck by a runaway ice cream truck while helping an elderly widow fix her car’s flat tire on the side of the highway.  He wanted to know if he could postpone taking the midterm exam for a few days.

“I said no.  It seemed to me that an 83-year-old woman should not be driving on the highway in the first place.  Gary was simply enabling her reckless behavior, and he needed to own the consequences of what he did.

“Gary took the exam and failed; I could not decipher his scrawled answers to any of the essay questions.  Now I feel kind of bad about all this.  The kid has a good heart.  Maybe I was too harsh.”

—  Marjorie L., Miami University of Ohio:  “On the day a term paper was due in my class, I was notified that Trent was in jail, having been arrested the night before for pistol-whipping the cashier at a 7-Eleven while attempting to shoplift a bag of Twizzlers.  Trent wanted an extension on the paper.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I know for a fact that our local jail has both PCs and printers available for inmate use.  Trent could have finished the paper in his cell on the night of his arrest and had his classmate Gretchen submit it the next day.  Just for the record, the two of them have been groping each other in the back row of the classroom like hamsters in heat since the beginning of the semester!”

—  Horace R., University of Arkansas:  “So, I get a text from Ruth Ann three days ago telling me that she’s just gone into labor.  She claims that she didn’t even know she was pregnant, which could be true, since Ruth Ann is a large, big-boned girl.  She wanted my permission to miss class for the next two weeks, because her delivery was going to be a C-section.

“Absolutely not.  The syllabus for my Senior Humanities seminar on The Art of Courtly Love clearly states that the course is only open to students who have not had sex in the year prior to the first day of class.  Ruth Ann clearly violated that policy.  I wish nothing but the best for her and her child, but there was nothing I could do.  She had to drop the class.”

Sometimes, the ones who need our empathy the most are our colleagues.    

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay entitled “The Data Is In: Trigger Warnings Don’t Help,” Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder report that they “found no evidence that trigger warnings improve students’ mental health” (October 1st print issue).  

The authors’ claim may be true, but the data tell a much different story when we focus on faculty mental health.  

It turns out that trigger warnings are essential for professors’ well-being, as indicated by the results of a joint research project carried out at Gettysburg College and Cornell University.  According to Cornell Psychology Professor Melvin Côte d’Azur, there are certain trigger sentences and paragraphs that consistently produce Sartrean existential dread, Level 3 nausea, and loss of bladder and bowel control in college faculty, both tenured and non-tenured.  The Top Ten include:

— “You have been selected to serve on an interdisciplinary faculty task force charged with revising the University’s core curriculum.”

— “The Dean called; she wants to discuss something that happened in your class on Monday.  You might want to bring a lawyer.”

— “I’d like to introduce you to Todd and Meghan, the branding consultants who will be facilitating our discussion of what to do with the Philosophy major.”

— “As your President, I’m proud to announce that our institution is embarking on an exciting dual-degree program with Okefenokee Swamp Bible College on the Florida/Georgia border.  Anyone interested in teaching a raft-based course on Alligators in the Old Testament next spring?”

— “The Provost and CFO are here today to help us review the implications of Philosophy’s cost/revenue metrics for the department’s future.  Has everyone brought their lawyer?”

— “Stan, your name popped up on a student’s Facebook page yesterday.  You should probably take a look.”

— “Stan, there’s someone here from the Title IX office to see you.”

— “The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee will meet on Wednesday to consider the proposed Sociology minor in White Guilt.  Father O’Shaughnessy will be available to hear confessions after the vote.  All faiths welcome!”

— “An all-day faculty training session on “Monitoring Your Public Utterances” will be held this Friday in the Forklift Annex of Spackle Auditorium.  A lunch consisting of locally sourced tofu squares, turnip smoothies, and unpeeled eggplant crumble will be provided, along with a communal burlap napkin.” 

— “Thanks for seeing me today, Professor.  The Department Chair said I could enroll in your Calculus 904 course this semester even though I haven’t taken any of the prerequisites.  I need 3 more Math credits in order to graduate in January, and your class was the only one that wasn’t filled.  Is there a Billie Eilish video I could watch that would help me catch up?  I have to get at least a B+ in your course to get my Bachelor’s degree in Craft Brewing.”

Students aren’t the only ones who experience terror.     

Colleges and universities across the nation were stunned yesterday when it was announced that consulting firms to higher education will soon be classified as Level I PARASITES — and a threat to public health — by the Centers for Disease Control.  

According to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, “we did not make this decision lightly, but we had no choice.  A parasite is an organism that lives in or on a host organism and obtains its nutrients at the expense of the host.  This is precisely what higher education consulting firms do.  They most closely resemble arthropods such as ticks, fleas, and lice, burrowing deep into the moist, fetid, germ-friendly crevices of a school’s organizational infrastructure for long periods of time, sucking out the institution’s discretionary financial resources.  

“What do colleges and universities get in return?  Generic diagnoses that are laughably primitive (‘Trust is low, communication is poor, silos are high’) and recommendations for change that are stupefyingly simplistic (‘Build trust, communicate better, use action verbs, HAVE A RETREAT!’).  

“And don’t get me started on firms that specialize in diversity training.  Dammit, there goes my acid reflux again!

“By the time a consulting firm is finished, all that’s left is an organizational husk — conference rooms filled with cynics, jargon-numbed zombies, and whiteboards hemorrhaging buzzwords (SYNERGY!) drawn with multi-colored dry-erase markers.  Behold the afterbirth of a newborn Vision Statement that puts an emphasis on ‘THE FUTURE’!  Crap, I just threw up on my blouse.  

“Once we get COVID under control, we’re going to take on these insidious ectoparasites.  Pfizer is working on both oral and anal vaccines for college presidents and provosts.  This is a battle we can’t afford to lose.”

In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jane Halonen and Dana Dunn offer advice on how to give written feedback to students without alienating them (September 10th online).  The overall suggestions the authors provide are valuable, but the examples they employ could be more pointed.  As a service to our readers, and with gratitude to Halonen and Dunn, University Life will now use the authors’ headings to illustrate their principles with a bit more punch. 

Explain your feedback style:  Let’s say that you’re one of those professors who prefer their students’ writing to be factually accurate.  In the current climate, where “my truth” is a phrase that many students view as a blank check, it’s important for them to know that such truth can represent the on-ramp to an assertion that is profoundly stupid.  It’s your responsibility to inform them that you will correct these assertions.  (“I hate to tell you this, Skippy, but Belgium was not one of the Thirteen Colonies.”)

Identify your quirks:  If you often use the term “dipwad” in your written feedback (“Hey, dipwad, a run-on sentence of 250 words is not OK.”), it’s a good idea to let students know this ahead of time.  Tell them not to take it personally.  

Emphasize WHY you’re giving students the feedback you’re giving them:  “Skippy, the reason I called you out for mistaking Belgium as one of the Thirteen Colonies is that you are a dipwad.”

Highlight what students have done well:  This is terrific advice.  Example:  “Tabitha, you looked really attractive in class today.  In fact, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you as I grade papers tonight, all alone in my king-size bed.  Thanks for being you.”

Limit corrections to the most important ones:  “Clyde, the assignment asked you to analyze the economic causes of the Franco-Prussian War.  You submitted a paper that discusses the process by which you assemble your NFL Fantasy Football team.  I’m confused.”

Ask students which kinds of critique will be most useful to them:  “Autumn, if I notice that you’ve engaged in wholesale plagiarism in your paper, do you want me to point that out, or would doing so make you feel uncomfortable?”  

Give students an opportunity to revise to recapture credit:  Once again, a great idea.  “Tabitha, now that I’ve finished reading your paper this evening, I must say it’s not very good.  Should we meet at Olive Garden for dinner tomorrow night to discuss what we can do about this?  My treat.”

Resist the urge to adopt current slang in your feedback:  Instead, use slang that you’re more familiar and comfortable with.  (“Hate to bug ya, daddy-o, but some of the grammar in your essay is less than groovy.  C’mon, hep cat.  Remove those cool shades and eyeball that prose one more time.”)

I can dig it, man.  Slip me five on the down side.