University Life

Across the country, sales of adult diapers have soared in cities and towns that house institutions of higher learning, as perspiration-drenched administrators attempt, in the midst of the pandemic, to plan for the Fall 2020 semester.  As one anonymous college president put it, “I’ve gotten used to soiling myself whenever we have a Zoom session to discuss how, and whether, to bring students back to campus in September.  Thank God we’re not meeting in person!  No room deodorizer on the planet could neutralize what I’m putting out there these days.”

Enter the University of Alabama, which is about to rewrite the playbook for creatively dealing with the havoc wreaked by COVID-19.  Yesterday it announced that on August 1st the University will be taken over by the school’s phenomenally successful NCAA Division 1 football program.  All academic and research divisions of the institution will officially become extra-curricular activities that students can participate in if they wish.   The new, restructured entity will simply be known as Crimson Tide, and the University of Alabama name will be retired.    

In a hastily called press conference, Dr. James Purcell, Executive Director of the state’s Commission on Higher Education, explained the change:

“The current pandemic has laid bare the vulnerability of institutions that prioritize academic pursuits.  Knowledge building and the communication of knowledge to students no longer represent viable, sustainable endeavors in the modern world.  In Alabama, however, we are blessed with the most successful college football operation on earth.  Indeed, you can travel to lands as far away as Yemen, Papua New Guinea, or Tasmania and find scores of street urchins proudly wearing Crimson Tide tee shirts.  It’s time to let head coach Nick Saban and his team chart the future of higher education in our beloved Cotton State. 

“Let’s face facts.  The University of Alabama was established in 1820.  The school has had 200 years to educate the residents of our state.  Can anyone look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that our citizens are any less dumb now than they were in 1820? 

“I’m waiting.

“I didn’t think so. 

“Come this  fall, I guarantee you that Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa will be filled with students and alumni, masks or no masks.  Fans over 70 years old will be seated in their own special section, which will be equipped with ventilators.  And cheerleaders will disinfect the players with full-body sanitizing wipes after every change of possession.

“Would this model of higher education work at Yale or Amherst?  Probably not, but that’s not my problem.  It’s going to work for us.”

Some schools have “flipped the classroom” in recent years.  In Alabama, they’re flipping the institution.  Stay tuned.  

Liberty University, the evangelical Christian institution in Lynchburg, VA, can’t stop making headlines.  At the end of June the school plans to shut down its Philosophy Department.  No joke. 

At first glance, getting rid of a Philosophy Department in a university that stresses the importance of religion might seem a bit strange.  But when Liberty President Jerry Falwell, Jr. explained his reasoning at a May 13th press conference, it all made sense.  His comments:

“I visited the Philosophy Department website the other day and found this sentence: ‘The philosophy degree at Liberty develops the whole person and will prepare you for a lifetime of problem-solving and critical thinking.’  

“My immediate reaction was: Are you f**king kidding me?  Where did they come up with this bulls**t?   If there’s a bullet train to Hell and eternal damnation that’s any faster and more direct than critical thinking, I have yet to see it.  Once you get on board, it’s impossible to get off.  You start questioning EVERYTHING:  ‘Oh Professor, I don’t find the biblical story of Eve being created from Adam’s rib to be compelling.  Did armadillos come from his collarbone?  Did pussy cats come from Eve’s special place?’ 

“Next thing you know, you’ve got hoards of students dressed up like KISS, fornicating in the cafeteria’s dessert line, humping like Satanic hamsters in heat, spread-eagled all over the plastic shields that are supposed to protect the apple crisp and peach cobbler.  Believe me, that’s the last thing we need on our campus right now as we try to enforce social distancing during the pandemic.  I’m sorry, but Philosophy must go.”

Now that’s a compelling argument, no matter what your religious beliefs are.  This round goes to President Falwell. 

 

As the pandemic continues to plague our nation, colleges and universities have been grappling with the challenge of what to do about grades in Spring 2020 courses.  Many schools have chosen the familiar option of Pass/Fail, but Syracuse University has followed a different path.  Its instructors can select one of the following when submitting grades this semester:  

• “Pass with Distinction”
• “Pass”
• “Saved by COVID-19”

According to Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud, “our students have been traumatized enough by the coronavirus.  The last thing they need right now is a stigmatizing F on their transcript, bleeding all over the page like a stuck pig on a paper towel.  Although ‘Saved by COVID-19’ is certainly no badge of honor, it’s not as hurtful as an F, and it doesn’t lower your GPA.

“In essence, NO ONE is going to fail ANYTHING at Syracuse University this term.  It’s the least we can do for our students, given that we’ve barred them from campus since Spring Break.  There’s no way we can ever make up for all the sex and alcohol they’ve missed over the past few months because they’ve been living at home with their parents, but eliminating F’s is something we can give them.” 

Student reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.  Randy Loofer, a Pre-Med major from Utica, New York, is ecstatic.  “I was definitely headed for an F in Organic Chemistry this semester.  I had gotten a 12 on the midterm exam, and that was higher than any of my quiz scores.  My goal of becoming a brain surgeon was going down the tubes.  But now I’m back in business, baby, and it’s awesome!  Mom and Dad, can you still get me a Watson-Cheyne dissecting probe with my initials on it for my birthday?  I love you!”

President Syverud, give yourself an A for your performance this semester.  And we’re not grading on a curve.  

 

 

 

True Fact:  Southern New Hampshire University recently announced that its incoming Fall 2020 freshmen would pay NO TUITION for their first year at the school.  That’s right — these students will attend SNHU tuition-free for one year.

Wow.  

One imagines SNHU President Paul LeBlanc delivering this bombshell to a bunch of college and university presidents at a TED Talk, then dropping his microphone on the stage as he saunters off, flashing a sly smile that says, “Top that, boys and girls!  At SNHU, we put the ‘dis’ in ‘disruption’.”  

Not so fast, Wonder Boy.

Candida College in Rutland, Vermont has responded with an offer that’s even more daring.  

At a press conference three days ago, Candida President Carson “Sonny” Tarpinsky indicated that not only would the upcoming academic year be tuition-free for its freshmen, it would also be the case that each of these students would be paid $10,000 by the school for attending in 2020-21.  Tarpinsky ended his prepared remarks by inviting President LeBlanc to “bite me.”

The proceedings took an awkward turn, however, when a reporter asked Tarpinsky about the financial implications of this offer for Candida, a school with an endowment of less than $2 million.  The President turned to Candida’s Chief Financial Officer, Len Honus, who silently mouthed the words “HOLY S**T!” and smacked his forehead while gazing at Tarpinsky.

Maintaining his cool, the President told the reporter that he would get back to her soon with an answer to that question.

In a related story, Rutland police are seeking the public’s help in locating Mr. Honus, who has not been seen since the press conference.  The police have identified the Mongo brothers, Jeremy and Jessie, as “persons of interest” in the case.  They were last spotted in the vicinity of Lake Bomoseen, near the town of Castleton, carrying a chainsaw and overstuffed duffel bag.  Anyone encountering the pair should call 911, and refrain from engaging them directly.  

 

 

Transitioning to online instruction during the COVID-19 crisis has been challenging for many professors and students, but in the midst of all this frustration the number of heartwarming episodes is growing.  Here are three of the more inspiring ones that have come to the attention of University Life:

—  Jake “Flipper” Swensen, a University of Florida sophomore, was beyond embarrassed when his bong exploded while he was taking an online exam in his Political Science course, Blondes in the Swedish Parliament.  His laptop was totalled, the keyboard drenched in water and hashish goo.  Rather than penalizing Flipper, Professor Roland Thunst sent him a replacement laptop at his own expense via Amazon Prime.  

Thunst observed that “accidents happen.  Hell, I was a poster child for LSD consumption during my graduate school days in the early 1970s.  Whoa, just had a flashback where my arms turn into pterodactyl wings.  Awesome!  But why do my feet look like cream cheese?”

“I wish our school had more professors like Dr. Thunst,” says Flipper.  “He gets me.”

—  English Professor Dwight Cuspy was a well-known campus curmudgeon at Franklin & Marshall College even before the pandemic, and being ordered to take his courses online did nothing to improve his temperament.  Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that he played a nasty little practical joke on the students in his Southern Literature class, asking them to write an analytical essay on “The Dirt under McAfee’s Nails,” a novella by William Faulkner.  No such novella exists, and students spent an infuriating 24 hours scouring the Internet for it before Cuspy informed them of the deception. 

Brandon Yazpoh was not amused.  A disgruntled English major whose hobby was starting small fires, Yazpoh found out where Cuspy lived and proceeded to set his two-car garage ablaze in the middle of the night, burning it to the ground. 

As he walked back to his apartment after the incident, Yazpoh had an epiphany, realizing that what he had done was wrong — seriously wrong.  He went to the police and confessed, offering to organize a group of students to rebuild the garage, “just like an old-fashioned barn-raising.” 

The professor was so touched by the gesture that he chose not to press charges, and plans to write a letter of recommendation for Brandon when he applies to law school.  Says Cuspy: “I think we both learned a lot from this episode.”

—  At the University of Vermont, beloved Cinema Studies faculty member Marvin Quofmanian thought he was downloading a lecture on “Themes from Chekhov and Woody Allen in the Fast and Furious Franchise” for his class to view.  Unfortunately, he mistakenly downloaded a pornographic video showing him being spanked by a prostitute dressed as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Humiliated, Quofmanian was on the verge of ending his life by locking himself in a walk-in freezer at an abandoned Wendy’s, but his students intervened.   They organized a GoFundMe campaign that raised over $47,000, hoping to hire Meryl Streep to play Thatcher in a new spanking video that would co-star the professor and be directed by a student from the class.  Streep, of course, won an Academy Award for portraying the Prime Minister in the 2011 film “The Iron Lady.”

Streep accepted the role, saying that she was proud to do her part to help others during the pandemic.  She will donate the $47,000 to a local charity that funds petting zoos in juvenile detention facilities. 

Quofmanian was beside himself with joy and appreciation.  “To be in a video with Meryl Streep, doing what we’ll be doing — without shame — is beyond my wildest dreams.  These students are the best.  God bless them!”

Ouch…Ouch…Ouch!  In a good way. 

 

It’s no secret that many colleges and universities are terrified that large numbers of high school seniors will go online for their first year of college in Fall 2020, resulting in scores of semi-deserted brick-and-mortar campuses around the nation. 

As it turns out, higher education is not being paranoid.

Yesterday, the Pew Research Center released the results of a study indicating that virtually every college-bound senior in the United States plans to attend Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), an online behemoth, in September.  

According to Pew Director of Survey Research Courtney Kennedy, “the only students who aren’t going to SNHU in the Fall are those who have been accepted by an Ivy League school or Liberty University, an evangelical Christian institution in Virginia.  What this means is that well over 2.5 million new students will enroll at SNHU over the next few months.”

The school’s Chief Marketing Officer, Alana Burns, is confident that SNHU will be ready for them: “We already serve about 87,000 online students.  Adding 2 or 3 million more should not be a problem.  As we like to say at SNHU, “We’ve got the bandwidth, if you’ve got the tuition.”

Couldn’t such a gigantic shift of students to one institution undermine the very foundations of higher education in America?

When SNHU President Paul LeBlanc was asked this question by a reporter, his response was immediate: “Well, I certainly hope so.  At SNHU, we’re all about market dominance.  We have no quarrel with the Ivy League educating the future Masters of the Universe.  We just want to educate everyone else, or at least give them credentials.  And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

What will happen to all those administrators, faculty, and staff now working at other institutions?

“Let’s face it,” LeBlanc observed, “the pandemic is likely to be with us for at least the next decade.  Do you have any idea how huge the demand is going to be for front-line, low-wage, underinsured health care workers?  These folks don’t grow on trees, you know.  It’s time for the higher education workforce to reinvent itself.  By the way, our new B.S. program in Ventilator Maintenance and Repair begins in January 2021.  If you’re a Literature Professor accustomed to teaching honors seminars with titles like Crucifixion Imagery in 16th-Century French Poetry, it might be a good idea to take off your Proustian wire-rim glasses, empty into the sink your shot glass full of absinthe, and get yourself a Pell Grant.  Spring 2021 classes begin on January 5th, and the SNHU application deadline is January 4th.”

Faculty near and far, please say hello to the future. 

With colleges and universities hemorrhaging alarming amounts of money due to the pandemic, institutions are searching for creative strategies to offset their losses.  Leading the way is Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, which will offer a one-day virtual conference, The Toilet Paper Summit (TPS-1), on May 11th.  

According to Bucknell President John Bravman, “all the data indicate that severe toilet paper shortages will continue to plague the United States long after the COVID-19 crisis passes.  We plan to bring together scholars from around the globe to address this issue.”

Here is the tentative schedule for TPS-1:

9:00 am   Keynote Address — “Biological Necessity or Capitalist Control Mechanism? A Post-Modernist Perspective on Bowel Movements” — Nigel Wiffton-Pipsey, Professor of Philosophical Biology, King’s College London

10:00 am   “Folding vs. Scrunching TP in a Time of Scarcity: Implications of Findings from the 2020 Scandinavian Sanitary-Practices Survey”

11:00 am   “Repurposing the Sunday New York Times for Bathroom Use:  Which Sections Work Best?”

11:45 am   Breakout Session 1:  “Can the Toilet Paper Crisis Save the Newspaper Industry?”

11:45 am   Breakout Session 2:   “Damn, That Hurts!  Glossy Magazines and the Challenge of Delicate-Area Paper Cuts”  (Sponsored by the Aloe Foundation of North America)

12:30 pm   Lunch in Place

1:15 pm     “The Last Resort: Raiding Your Home Library”

2:00 pm     Breakout Session 3:  “Saying Goodbye to Your Favorite Novels:  Grief Management Strategies”  (Panel discussion with Ann Patchett, Zadie Smith, Richard Russo, and Margaret Atwood)

2:00 pm     Breakout Session 4:   “Wise Decision in Retrospect? Not Discarding Those Stacks of Unread New Yorkers”

2:45 pm      “Running Here, There, and Everywhere:  A Conversation with Survivors of the 1952 Spoiled Burrito Panic”  (Sponsored by Taco Bell)

3:45 pm      Ethics Roundtable:  “Public Restrooms, Toilet Paper Theft, and the Common Good” (Jared Kushner, Session Chair)

4:30 pm       Closing Plenary: “Bridge Over Troubled Water” performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — Mike Pence, Guest Soloist

Registration for the Conference is $250.  Partial scholarships are available for furloughed faculty.

 

 

 

Higher education experts believe that COVID-19 could bring many colleges and universities to their knees, but no one thought that the first major casualty would be the University of Kansas (KU), the state’s flagship institution.

At an April 2nd press conference, KU Chancellor Doug Girod announced that the University will close permanently at the end of the current academic year.  The reason: the NCAA’s cancellation of the 2020 men’s basketball tournament, which meant that the school’s #1-ranked Jayhawks would not get a chance to win the national championship.

Red-eyed and choked with emotion, Girod spoke without notes:

“Our record was 28 and 3 when the season was stolen from us.  This loss has simply been too much for our community to bear.  In Kansas, college basketball is all we have.  We’ve got no Major League baseball team, no NFL team, no NBA team, no NHL team.  Nothing!  If it weren’t for Dorothy saying ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto’ in The Wizard of Oz, nobody would know our state even exists.

“We offered all of our players substantial financial incentives, siphoned from the budget of KU’s Office of Gender Equity, to come back next year, but as a group they have decided to enter the NBA draft.  Without them, who knows when we would be good enough to return to the Final Four?  Perhaps never.

“Our student body is bereft.  They live for March Madness.  KU’s Counseling Center is seeing a record number of cases of self-flagellation.  Some students have even tried to take their own lives by attaching themselves to basketballs with duct tape and jumping into nearby Clinton Lake, not realizing that the balls would keep them afloat rather than sink them.  Now their humiliation is total. 

“At an all-campus assembly immediately following the cancellation of the tournament, I tried to remind everyone that what’s important in life is the journey, not the destination, and that they should focus on the team’s glorious trip to 28 and 3.  Students and faculty responded by screaming ‘BULLSHIT!’

“I have to admit, I agree with them.  I feel so, so empty.  At this point, I think I can best fulfill my role as Chancellor by shepherding our beloved institution into the hereafter with dignity.  There are plenty of other schools in Kansas where students can get a………can get a………actually, let me get back to you on that. 

“Soar toward the light, Jayhawks, soar toward the light!”

Plans to transform the KU campus into an Amazon Fulfillment Center are pending.  Tenured full professors will be given preference when hiring begins.  

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.”