University Life

Many colleges and universities view the coronavirus as an existential threat. 

Not Harvard.

The school, with its $40 billion endowment, is using the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to consolidate its power.  On March 27th, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow contacted the governing boards of the seven other Ivy League institutions, offering to buy them out.  If his bold move succeeds, the Ivy League will consist of one school with eight campuses:

• Harvard Cambridge
• Harvard Ithaca
• Harvard Hanover
• Harvard New Jersey
• Harvard New Haven
• Harvard Philadelphia
• Harvard NYC
• Harvard Providence

According to Bacow, “this consolidation will enhance the ability of our institution to assign elite children to the Ivy League location that best suits their needs, or the needs of their parents, or the needs of the banking and consulting industries they will be joining after graduation.  Each campus will have a different focus.”  

Here’s the plan.  All quotes are from President Bacow. 

Harvard Cambridge:  The mothership, offering a standard elite curriculum.  “Lots of courses with no vocational value, but they make you an interesting person.”

Harvard Ithaca:  Will become the Harvard College of Agriculture, focusing on ice-cream products and yogurt. “Cornell’s on-campus Dairy Bar has always been the school’s core competency.  They have the best cows in the Ivy League.  We intend to make Ithaca the go-to place for education in this domain, and anticipate expanding into frozen custard and gelato.”

Harvard Hanover:  Soon to be the Harvard Institute of Snow and Alcohol Studies, where students can earn a BS in Snow Science or a BA in Problem Drinking.  “This is a perfect fit.  New Hampshire’s climate is highly supportive of the first major, and where the second major is concerned, data indicate that the typical Dartmouth student consumes his or her body weight in beer and vodka every three days.  These kids are wasted!”

Harvard New Jersey:  Will be known as The Antebellum Academy, offering a BA in Pre-Civil-War Studies.  “Let’s face it, Princeton University is basically a Southern plantation that was forced by the Civil Rights Movement to alter its groundskeeping employment practices and desegregate its debutante balls.  Let’s make some lemonade out of this lemon.”

Harvard New Haven:  Will be the home of the Harvard Thin-Crust Culinary Institute.  “New Haven is world-famous for its pizza and for its………well, for its pizza.  Students will be able to major in Mozzarella or Ricotta.”

Harvard Philadelphia:  “How does the “Balboa School of Performing and Fine Arts” sound to you?  The Rocky film series was based in Philadelphia.  Sylvester Stallone has agreed to serve as the School’s first Dean. Yo, Adrian!”

Harvard NYC:  The International Campus, where all foreign students will be enrolled, so that they can benefit from “the full American experience” that living in New York  City provides.  The Core Curriculum will include Subway Riding.

Harvard Providence:  “Unfortunately, we have no idea what we’re going to do with this location.  I mean, we’re talking here about Providence, Rhode Island, for God’s sake, and a school named after a color!  Maybe something with a maritime or aquarium theme would work.  Providence is on the water, right?”

While President Bacow hopes that the “New Harvard” will begin enrolling students in Fall 2021, some of his faculty are skeptical of the venture.  As one anonymous professor put it, “we all know that Bacow and his wife recently came down with the coronavirus, and are now self-quarantined.  When those two spend too much time alone, they get pretty squirrelly and generate wacky ideas.  Do you recall the Yak-in-a-Box fast-food franchise Harvard started last year?  How did that turn out?”

Stay tuned. 

After initially stating that Liberty University, an evangelical Christian institution in Virginia, would continue to hold in-person classes after Spring Break, President Jerry Falwell, Jr. announced on March 16th that these courses would be delivered online for the rest of the semester.  The reason given was Governor Ralph Northam’s decision to ban large gatherings in the state due to the coronavirus.

Hmm…… 

University Life has learned that the actual story is a bit more complicated.  Below is an authenticated transcript of a phone call that The Almighty made to President Falwell on the evening of March 15th.  Unfortunately, we cannot reveal how the transcript was obtained.  But, trust us, it’s real.

Falwell:  “G, it’s good to hear from you.” 

Almighty:  “You have Caller ID, I presume.”

Falwell:  “Bingo!  How the heck are you?  This virus you’ve put together is causing quite a stir.”

Almighty:  “I know.  That’s why I’m calling.  I notice that you don’t plan to transition Liberty to online classes after Spring Break.  What’s your reasoning, may I ask?”

Falwell:  “Logistically, it would be a nightmare.  Also, we’ve got a great bunch of kids here at Liberty.  Virtuous people don’t get sick.  We’re not a big party school like Tulane or Wake Forest, places where drunk, promiscuous undergrads are destined to go to Hell.”

Almighty:  “Really?  Is that how it works?”

Falwell:  “Pretty much.  Hey, G, it’s your universe, you designed it.”

Almighty:  “Yes, I’m aware of that.  And the virtuous don’t get sick because…..?”

Falwell:  “Prayer, it’s all about prayer.  Our kids pray all the time.  I’m talking serious, deep-dish, bow-your-head-to-your-navel-while-whacking-your-shoulders-with-a-nail-studded-mallet-prayer. And our students abstain from S…..E…..X,  or anything that might lead to it, like eye contact.”

Almighty:  “I see.  What about the elderly, Jerry?  How come they’re so susceptible to COVID-19?  They pray a lot, and most of them aren’t having much sex.”

Falwell:  “Good question, G.  But many senior citizens have lived pretty wicked lives, and now they’re paying the Price of Evil.  To be honest, it’s about time they did.  Thanks for thinning the herd.”

Almighty:  “Jerry, you worry me.  But that’s a conversation for another day.  You need to abide by the Governor’s ban and go online with your courses.”

Falwell:  “But Governor Northam is a Satan-worshiping Democrat who tortures kittens for sport!  How can you ask me to….”

Almighty:  “Jerry, I’m not asking you; I’m telling you.  Go online within seven days or I’ll have the Holy Ghost transform your genitals into rotting broccoli florets.”

Falwell:  “But……”

Almighty:  “Jerry…..”

Falwell:  “OK, OK…..but if you didn’t create this virus to punish the sinners among us, why did you do it?”

Almighty:  “Sports, mainly.  For one thing, the Major League Baseball season is way too long; it’s time to shorten it.  And March Madness is so over-hyped it makes me want to puke.  Conferences with nearly half of their schools getting into the tournament?  Are you kidding me?  Now, that’s evil.  Screw it.  Finally, if I had to listen to Jim Nantz utter the phrase “a tradition unlike any other” one more time while shilling for the Master’s Golf Tournament, I was going to nuke Augusta National and the rest of Georgia.  Oh, I forgot:  Joseph, my Son’s stepdad, wants to go into the hand-sanitizer business.  I promised him I’d help out.  The guy could use a break; I’ve always felt sorry for Joe.  Used to be a decent carpenter, but now, with the arthritis and cataracts, he’s lost.  Mary hardly gives him the time of day.”

Falwell:  “G, you’re the Man!”

Almighty:  “Why, yes…..yes I am.”

 

 

Dear ______:

When Spring Break is over, don’t even think about coming back here.  We’re serious.  Under no circumstances should you set foot on this campus.  We’ve put rattlesnakes in the residence halls.   Let’s face it, COVID-19 has won Round One. 

Please be aware that during your absence you will continue to be charged for three meals a day on your meal plan.  This is because our contract with the union that represents the food-service workers requires them to be paid in full even if there are no students to serve, and no meals to prepare.  Sorry, but if you recall, many of you marched in support of this demand two years ago when we were negotiating with the union.  Indeed, some of you threw dinner rolls and unopened jars of pasta sauce at the school’s President when he addressed this issue at the all-college meeting on the campus quad.

If you’re an international student and have returned to your home country, God help you, because we have absolutely no idea when we might see you again.  Perhaps never.  But that’s not an excuse for falling behind in your tuition payments.  Please have your parents contact us ASAP.  Don’t make our collection agents come looking for you.  These agents can be awfully “prickly,” to put it mildly, and are not constrained by the U.S. Criminal Code when working overseas. 

If you’ve checked out any books from the library, please……Ha-ha, just kidding!  Nobody has checked out a book from our library since 2002. 

The April 25^th Spring Concert featuring Red, an Ed Sheeran cover band, and opening act Simone (Kendrick Lamar’s second cousin) has been cancelled.  Tickets are not refundable, but can be used to purchase items from discontinued campus clothing lines at the bookstore.

We will make a good-faith attempt to provide you with online resources to finish all of your courses this semester, but keep in mind that our IT department is a one-man operation, and Todd hasn’t been the same since ingesting two plutonium-laced M&Ms at the Burning Man festival last summer.  Whatever you do, avoid sending him any email messages using ALL CAPS.

Please don’t complain to us about in-person classes being suspended for the rest of the term.  Our records indicate that most of you skip class about 70% of the time, and some of you don’t even know where your classes are held, so turn off the crocodile-tears faucet. 

Several professors have kindly provided us with final exams for your courses.  You have until May 10^th to complete them online:

Contemporary Literature (Dr. Johnson):  Read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, and then re-read it from back to front.  Does it make more sense the second time?  Explain your answer, and compare the book’s themes with those found in The Bridges of Madison County.

Remedial Algebra (Dr. Wheybourne-Twilley):  Assume x = 6.  Solve for x.  Show your work.

Introductory Sociology (Dr. Spawn):  Given that senior citizens are highly vulnerable to the coronavirus, can COVID-19 be held morally and/or legally accountable for being ageist?  Make sure to cite your sources.

Sociology Honors Seminar (Dr. Spawn):  Deconstruct society.  Then rebuild it, using only women.

Accounting 122 (Professor Korbst):  Pick any dollar amount less than $500.  Type it 250 times, using a different font each time.  Don’t copy your classmate’s amount.

Electoral Politics (Dr. Florf):  Would SNL’s Kate McKinnon have fared better than Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primaries?  Support your argument with three examples from Meryl Streep’s film career.

The Spring 2020 graduation ceremony will be held on May 16^th, unless it isn’t.  We’ll keep you updated on Twitter.  A lot depends on how successful we are in finding the Registrar, who was last seen purchasing a keg of Johnnie Walker Red in a local liquor store on March 5^th.  If you encounter Ms. Tobin, please ask her to call us.   

We realize that these are difficult times for all of us.  Our first priority is the safety of our students, even the ones with low GPAs.  Toward that end, we will be sending each of you a container of hand sanitizer and a month’s supply of Purell-treated condoms or diaphragms.  Enjoy the rest of the semester, but be careful out there.  Your tuition matters!

TO:         Thorsten Grelk

               Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

FROM:   Hayden Yorftel

               Chair, Department of Psychology

I acknowledge receipt of your phone message yesterday requesting that I add a section of Introductory Psychology to the Spring 2020 schedule, which starts in three days.  You would like the course to be taught by an adjunct instructor of my choosing, and offered MWF at 8:00 am on a fishing trawler docked in Hammerfest, Norway, the site of our Midwestern university’s newest branch campus. 

Sorry, but this is not going to happen.  No way.  Your request is ill-advised for many reasons, most of which I would not expect a Dean to understand.  And just for the record, it makes no sense for our university to offer a 12-credit undergraduate certificate program in Cod Psychology in Hammerfest, since there is no such field as “Cod Psychology.”  I am offended that you established this program without soliciting input from the Psychology Department.

Please stop doing stupid things.  Thank you. 

TO:         Yasmine Starling-Grant

               Provost

FROM:   Denora Franzene

               Professor of History

Thanks so much for inviting me to chair the task force you are assembling to revise the College’s core curriculum.  Unfortunately, I must respectfully decline because the task force will include Professor Wendell Sorghum. 

How shall I put this?  Professor Sorghum is an idiot, a true monument to preening ignorance.  His views on virtually all subjects are painfully ill-informed, but presented with supreme confidence.  Getting him to shut up during a meeting usually requires setting off the building’s fire alarm, and even that doesn’t always work (and it annoys the fire department).  Wendell eats more than his share of snacks from the conference table, chews with his mouth open, and stares without blinking at my bosom for extended periods in a manner that suggests that he is watching the chariot race in Ben Hur.  He consistently shows up late for meetings without having read the background material, and then has the audacity to proclaim, “Whoa, let’s not get ahead of ourselves!”

If Professor Sorghum were to serve on a task force I chaired, it would only be a matter of time before I attempted to strangle this bloviating little cockroach with my bare hands.  

Thanks, but no thanks.  Good luck with the task force.

TO:         Harold Dwerz

               Business Office

FROM:   Basil Lepson

               Assistant Professor of Chemistry

I have been informed that the reimbursement request I submitted for my dinner purchase of a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich and a small soda ($5.83) at the recent American Chemical Society convention in Dallas has been denied.  The reason given is that I failed to provide a receipt.

My submission included a note indicating that I had been mugged after exiting the McDonald’s.  During this incident my wallet, which contained the receipt, was stolen, and I was pistol-whipped, resulting in a concussion and facial lacerations that necessitated a three-day hospital stay.  I now feel like I am being punished for eating in a sketchy part of town in an attempt to stay within the $7 dinner allowance that the University stipulates for junior faculty.  The pettiness of the Business Office’s response in this matter is indeed shocking.  Have I become a character in a Franz Kafka novella?  Please reconsider this decision.

TO:         Timothy Karff

               Math Major       

FROM:   Peyton Teffrondi

               Professor of Mathematics

Tim, you have indicated that you wish to be addressed in our Calculus II class as Qentor, Avenger of the 7^th Sun, noting that this name represents “your personal truth” much more accurately than your “pathetic Earthling label.”  You also would like me to acknowledge in class the presence of Panzeem, an invisible canine (half-bichon, half-coyote) that apparently accompanies you wherever you go on campus. 

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that I can do neither of those things.  Tim, you’re bats**t crazy.  I know that’s a controversial phrase to be using these days, but I’m pretty sure it’s justified in your case.  Something has come loose in your brain box, and it needs to get fixed.  A visit to the Counseling Center is in order.  May the Force be with you.

TO:         Griffin Caftan

               Chair, Department of English      

FROM:   Christine Hurl-Turbot

               Professor of English

Thanks for the syllabus template you sent to Department members yesterday.  The template indicates that each course objective should be stated in terms of the specific skills needed for at least three professional jobs included in any current dictionary of occupational titles. 

I’m having a difficult time doing this for the course, Egyptian Poetry from 1100 to 1250, which I plan to offer in the Fall 2020 semester.  Perhaps I’m thinking too narrowly, but I come up empty after listing the job of “poet.”  I’ve considered jobs that would place a premium on rhyming skills (e.g., writing jingles for TV commercials), but the fact is that 95% of all the rhymes covered in this course involve the word “sand.”  Any suggestions you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Heads up: In Spring 2021 I’ll be teaching a Special Topics course, How a Punctuation Mark Became the Large Intestine: A History of the Colon in Literature and Medicine.  I’ll probably need your help on this one as well.

Remember Silent Sam, the monument to a Confederate soldier that caused such a stir on the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus that a decision was made to give the statue, along with a $2.5 million trust fund, to an organization known as the “Sons of Confederate Veterans”?  Well, a superior court judge has ordered the Sons to return the monument to the UNC system, whose Board of Governors now has to figure out what to do with this controversial piece of cultural plutonium (Richmond County Daily Journal online, Feb. 26).

Well, a solution may be at hand.  Sources close to the Board of Governors indicate that a plan is in the works to attach water wings and a high-intensity halogen lamp to Sam, so that he can be strategically placed at the epicenter of the notoriously treacherous Bermuda Triangle in the North Atlantic, where he will serve as a “beacon buoy” for marine and air traffic.

According to UNC Board Chairman Randy Ramsey, “it’s only fitting that a symbol of a devastating defeat for the South should be redeemed by deploying it to prevent future disasters.  Bobbing on the surface of the sea, serving as an ever-vigilant sentry, Silent Sam will help guide ship captains and jet pilots to safety for the next hundred years.  We may have lost the war, but we will not let the turbulent waters of the briny deep claim any more of our sons and daughters, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, or sharecropping status.”

At long last, it looks like Silent Sam will be protecting everyone. 

 

So here’s the deal: Watkins College of Art, a financially stressed institution in Nashville, plans to merge in Fall 2020 with Belmont University, a Christian school that is also located in Nashville (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 21).  

Not surprisingly, students and faculty at Watkins are worried about the merger’s implications for artistic freedom, given Belmont’s strong Christian identity.  To explore this issue, University Life reporter Todd Quandell sat down with a senior Belmont administrator for a candid interview.  The administrator asked not to be identified, and thus will be referred to as “X.”  Key excerpts from the conversation are presented below:

Quandell:  “Let’s cut to the chase.  Will nude models be allowed in class after the merger?”

X:  “Wow, you really do hit the ground running, don’t you?  Our Board of Trustees is debating this very question as we speak.  The problem is that many Belmont students come from highly sheltered backgrounds, and some have never seen a naked body, not even their own.  It might be traumatic for them if their first exposure to the unclad human form took place in an art class.  One solution might be trigger warnings for these courses, but a decision has yet to be made.”

Quandell:  “There are rumors circulating among Watkins students that the only portraits they will be permitted to paint for course credit are Madonna-and-child depictions.  Is that true?”

X:  “Absolutely not.  Students will also be able to submit portraits of Joseph, the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and lambs.  At Belmont we’re very big on lambs.  Our campus art museum has the largest collection of lamb paintings in the Northern Hemisphere.”

Quandell:  “What about Modern Art?  Will students be able to study the work of artists such as Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol?”

X:  “Picasso divorced his first wife, so he’s out.  And Pollock was an alcoholic, so the answer for him is ‘no’ as well.  Warhol was homosexual.  No Warhol.  No way.”

Quandell:  “You do know that most scholars believe that Michelangelo was probably gay?”

[X punches Quandell square in the face, knocking him off his chair.]

X:  “Take that back!”

Quandell:  “So I guess this means that the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe would also be out of bounds?”

[X grabs the folding chair he’s been sitting on and takes a home-run swing at Quandell, sending him sprawling across the floor.  There’s some blood.]

Quandell:  “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ on Mapplethorpe.”

X:  “That would be correct.”

Quandell:  “In addition to religious icons and lambs, what sorts of subjects do Belmont art students focus on?” 

X:  “Baskets of fruits and vegetables, mainly.  You know, still lifes.  And meadows.  Lots of meadows.  Of course, students must avoid provocative fruits such as overripe peaches or bananas at any stage of development.  Apples are nice.  Our students are very skilled at painting apples, and not just the traditional varieties like Red Delicious and McIntosh, but also the newer ones like Cosmic Crisp and SugarBee.  

Quandell:  “Impressive.”

X:  “We certainly think so.  Here, let me put a bandage on that head wound.  It’s still oozing a bit.”

University Life tips its hat to Todd Quandell for his intrepid reporting on this assignment.  

 

 

 

 

The ethics code of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) used to prohibit institutions from recruiting students who were enrolled in other colleges or universities.  In other words, you couldn’t engage in “poaching” — actively soliciting transfer students.  Last fall, NACAC removed this prohibition (The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 14). 

Now, all hell has broken loose, as admissions offices around the country develop customized approaches that target specific groups of students.  Consider the following emails that were sent to second-semester freshmen at three different schools in early February:

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TO:  Griffin LaFleck, Darmouth College 

Griffin, are you tired of freezing your ass off in Hanover, New Hampshire, pooping chunks of ice every time you sit down on the toilet?  Does it take so long for you and your Saturday night hook-up partner to shed your parka,  fleece-lined ear-flap winter hat, cable-knit sweater, flannel shirt, ski pants, thermal underwear, snow boots, and wool socks that you’re too exhausted to have sex once you’ve undressed?

If so, then consider transferring to Princeton University, the Ivy League school with the sultry climate and social ambiance of the Deep South.  Close your eyes as you sit on a bench on our magnificent campus, and you’ll swear that you’re surrounded by majestic plantations, fragrant magnolia trees, and bottomless pitchers of sweet tea.  Even in February, all you’ll need to wear are flip-flops, khaki shorts, and a T-shirt.  And be sure to ask our admissions staff about Naked Wednesdays, a Princeton undergraduate tradition that started in 1967!  Please join us…..and thaw out.

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TO:  Bobby Trakel, University of Alabama

You’re a Vermont native who thought it would be fun to attend a big-time football school where tailgating is a way of life on fall Saturdays.  But your poor math skills didn’t serve you very well, did they?  Those home football games only occupy about six days during the entire school year.  The rest of the time you’re still in….oh my God….ALABAMA!  How’s that workin’ out for you, buddy?  What’s it like living in a state where the nighttime lows in January are in the mid-80s, and you spend every evening dodging mosquitoes that are the size of U.S. military drones?  

Bobby, in the name of all that is good and holy, please transfer to Temple University in Philadelphia, where you can at least get a decent cheesesteak sub that doesn’t have caramelized skeeters mixed in with the grilled onions. We’ll even give you a bus voucher so you can travel to Penn State football games in the fall, if that’s what it takes to get you here.  

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TO:  Beatrice Rowflausen, Williams College

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.  Attend Williams, a small liberal arts school in the Berkshires, where you would discover the “real Beatrice” and write the first chapter of your coming-of-age novel that would become a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.  But then you arrived on campus and found that your fellow students were so, so weird, including all those white guys wearing blond dreadlocks.  They were even more self-absorbed than you.  The professors were equally strange; both the male AND female faculty members smoked pipes in class, and every course you took — including 19th-Century British Literature — required you to write a paper on climate change.  

Had enough?  Perhaps it’s time for you to take a look at the University of Alabama, where the students are as normal as ladybugs sittin’ on a picnic basket, the professors chew tobacco rather than smoke it, and the only “climate change” we care about is what happens when you turn on an air conditioner in Tuscaloosa in August.  C’mon down and pay us a visit, y’all!

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Streaming Alert:  Coming to HBO in 2021 — Admissions, the sequel to Mad Men.  

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Yep, it’s true.  The first time a student cheats in Introduction to Computer Science, a course taught by Harvard Professor David Malan, the offender has 72 hours to confess the crime.  Doing so will result in the student flunking the assignment, but the student will not be subject to further disciplinary action for the misdeed.  (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 23 online)

A version of the professor’s policy has now been adopted outside of the classroom in Elkins, West Virginia.  According to Elkins Police Chief Lemuel “Lum” Turley, “If you shoot someone in our city and turn yourself in within 24 hours, we will not arrest you, and you will not be prosecuted.  Of course, you will be required to apologize to the victim’s next of kin.  This policy only applies to first-time shooters.”

Initiated on January 1st, 2020, the policy has had mixed results.  On the one hand, the number of homicides in Elkins has increased from 2 in all of 2019 to 117 in January 2020 alone.  “Apparently, this town is home to a lot of folks who are mighty pissed off,” Turley observes.  “Nearly all of the January shootings were carried out by wives who were sick and tired of being treated poorly by their husbands.  To be honest, I can’t blame the ladies.  Elkins men are notorious for being nastier than a bunch of turkey buzzards with an ass rash.  I’m confident that the number of domestic-violence calls we’ll get in 2020 involving female victims will show a large drop compared with 2019, and that’s a good thing — a damn good thing!  And I can say for sure that I’m a much better husband to my wife Thelma these days, ever since she started keeping a revolver inside her Spanx and enrolled in that firearms training class over in Parsons.”

Addendum:  Hallmark reports that sales of Valentine’s Day cards “for her” have gone up 876% in Elkins this year, the biggest increase of any city in the nation.   

Uh-oh.  A former chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Drexel University has been arrested after spending nearly $200,000 in research-grant funds at strip clubs and sports bars, as well as on meals and iTunes.  No joke. 

Defending financial wrongdoing of this magnitude would seem to be an impossible task, but at least one high-profile source of support for the miscreant professor has emerged.  On Wednesday, ABET, the global accreditor of college and university programs in fields such as computing and engineering, issued a public statement urging the district attorney in this case to “cut the professor some slack,” and offered the following justification:

“ECE students are legendary for being obsessed with studying during their undergraduate and graduate years.  During that period they do not engage in the types of recreational pursuits enjoyed by their non-ECE peers.  On average, ECE majors do not lose their virginity until the age of 41, have no experience with alcohol beyond an occasional Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and have never gone to a movie. 

“Virtually none of them have dated, and they have no concept of popular music.  Most think that Beyoncé is the brand name of a fabric softener, and that Bruno Mars is ‘Bruno, Mars’, the capital city of a planet in our solar system.  Their diet consists almost exclusively of Ramen Noodles, black coffee, and Twizzlers.  An astonishingly high percentage of these folks have absolutely no idea of how human reproduction takes place.

“With these facts in mind, is it any wonder that a small number of ECE professors go rogue when they eventually become aware of all the temptations that the rest of us have been lucky enough to encounter much earlier in our lives?  The Drexel professor in this case is 57 years old. Is it too much to ask, ‘When will his time for happiness come?’  A $100 bill tucked into the thong of a pole dancer in South Philly every now and then would seem to be a small price to pay for an ECE professor’s lifelong dedication to his career.”

ABET may have a point.  

Last fall the Board of Trustees at Purdue University initiated a policy that prohibits its faculty, staff, and students from betting on sporting events in which a Purdue team participates.  No joke. 

Not surprisingly, Purdue’s ability to effectively enforce this policy has been questioned.  And now the gambling industry has taken its boldest step yet to separate college professors from their wages.  Beginning on March 1st, faculty across the country will be able to place bets on Tenure and Promotion applications at their school.  

According to Sonny “Sweetmeat” Credenza, Director of Gaming Operations at Bellagio Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, gamblers will be able to bet on the success or failure of a candidate’s application at multiple levels: department, academic division (e.g., Arts & Sciences), Dean, university-wide committee, Provost, and President.  “The beauty of the system,” says Credenza, “is that you’ll be able to bet in favor of a candidate at one level, and against that same candidate at a higher level.  Our professional oddsmakers are  thoroughly trained in using regression analysis to take into account scholarly productivity, teaching performance, service to the school, race, gender identity, national origin, post-modernist leanings, institutional culture, and other pertinent factors when establishing betting lines.  We’ll provide customers with briefing sheets on every candidate at their college or university.  A well-informed gambler is a happy gambler!

“One exciting side effect of T & P betting is that it promises to generate heightened interest across the campus in the overall Tenure and Promotion process.  Typically, Professor Jones in Political Science could care less if Professor Turdball in Mechanical Engineering gets tenure or not.  But, trust me, on March 1st he’ll start caring big-time if he has skin in the game!  Talk about March Madness!  And 20% of all casino T & P profits will go back to the schools to invest as they wish.  Do I hear the phrase ‘win-win’?”  

When a reporter commented that “things could get awkward if you bet against a colleague you know personally,” Credenza quickly responded, “that’s your problem, not our problem.  But a little common sense can go a long way.  For example, if you score a big hit, don’t be a d**k and go out and buy a Porsche 911 the day after it’s announced that your colleague has been turned down for tenure.  That colleague might suspect that the two events are related.

“Look, we’ve taken a tedious, time-consuming faculty-review process that only the candidates and their significant others used to care about, and transformed it into a data-driven Mardi Gras that will engage the whole campus.  What’s not to love?”

One can only hope that the Board of Trustees at Purdue will agree.