University Life

“Embarrassing” emerged recently as the word of the day at the University of Michigan, after its Office of University Development recommended “key words” and phrases to a poetry fellow in a ham-fisted attempt to help her compose a poem for the inauguration of the school’s new President (Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25th online).  

Inaugural poems are commonplace in higher education, but University Life readers might not know that many colleges and universities also commission short poems when a President leaves the institution in disgrace.  Here’s a sampling from the past three years, organized by reason for dismissal.  In order to avoid adding insult to injury, the schools are not identified. 

Embezzlement of Funds

Pell Grant money, stolen

Where did that yacht come from?

May it sink

Ever so slowly

Into the Mariana Trench

With you below deck, dear President

Squealing like a mischief of sewer rats in a burlap sack

Thrown from a bridge

Sexual Misconduct

Couldn’t keep it in your pants

Could you?

You disgust us

Please zip up before leaving

We don’t want you scaring the earthworms

Lack of Commitment to Shared Governance

All we wanted 

Was to work with you

But of course

That was too much to ask

Of a narcissist

Get out

Overall Ineffectiveness

What were we thinking

When we hired an Oreck like you?

You suck at your job

Tone Deafness

At commencement you proclaimed

“Harry Belafonte was my favorite Negro”

And then you sang “Day-O”

HUGE mistake

So, so huge

Mind-Numbing Stupidity

“Ron DeSantis may have a point”

You said so at the General Faculty Meeting

No, he doesn’t have a point

And every breath you take

Is one too many

Finally, poetry for the 21st century. 

The message delivered by “Power Shift,” the April 14th cover story in the Chronicle of Higher Education, could not have been clearer: “What’s considered appropriate for a college professor to say and do in a classroom has changed dramatically….student deference to their teachers is not nearly as strong as it once was” (p. 16).  

Nowhere is this transformation more evident than at Cornell Medical School in New York City.  After three months of raucous student protests, Interim Dean Francis Lee announced on Thursday that the school’s curriculum would no longer address the sexually transmitted disease (STD) of chlamydia.

According to Lee, “chlamydia is a trauma trigger for most of our students.  Many of them contracted it in middle school, while others have lost family and friends to this affliction.  Under these circumstances, forcing students to actually STUDY chlamydia is just cruel.  It adds insult to injury.  How did medical schools ever think this was a good idea?

“In the coming months our training focus will transition from panic-inducing STDs toward the soothing amniotic fluid of holistic wellness.  We will offer new courses on hummus-based healing, colon cleansing, and herbal shampoos that prevent COVID.  This initiative will be overseen by Dr. Gwyneth Paltrow, our incoming Director of Mindful Medicine. 

“Our commitment to trauma-free learning will be underscored by a name change:  Beginning September 1st, 2023, we will be known as the Ornell Medical School.  Students will no longer have to encounter the dreaded chlamydia ‘C’ — what psychotherapists call the ‘consonant of suffering’ — every time they contemplate our institution.  I must say, it’s about time.” 

On March 30th, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst unveiled a new “brand mark” designed to expand the school’s “visual identity system” (UMass website).   Yes, the phrases in quotation marks actually appeared in the announcement, unaccompanied by puzzled or laughing emojis. 

The new brand mark, otherwise known as a “logo” to rank-and-file humans, is the letter “M.”  

When a reporter observed that “M” could represent any one of EIGHT flagship universities around the country, John Kennedy, Vice Chancellor of University Relations at UMass, went on the offensive, trashing the other seven states by name.

His rant:

“Montana?  Hell, it’s not even a state, it’s a territory.  Union troops are still clearing out tribes of Chippewa, Sioux, and Crow holed up in Bozeman and Missoula.

“PLEASE don’t get me started on Maryland.  I’m not saying that students in College Park are slow, but there must be a reason the school’s mascot is a terrapin.  The state is shaped like a jigsaw-puzzle piece designed by someone who sits on a park bench all day and screams at pigeons.  No way Maryland deserves an “M.”

“Missouri?  Seriously?  You have a big ol’ arch in St. Louis that celebrates McDonald’s.  And you had a World’s Fair back in 1904.  Get over it.

“Mississippi?  God, no.  In Yalobusha and Tallahatchie counties it’s still legal to own slaves.  What kind of message does that send?

“Minnesota?  Don’t make me laugh.  The Vikings have played in four Super Bowls and lost them all.  When it’s 20 degrees below zero you cut a hole in one of your 10,000 frozen lakes and go ice fishing.  How pathetic is that?

“Maine?  Ever try to have a conversation with someone from Downeast?  They can barely speak English.  And let’s face it: without a tub of butter, Maine lobster is just a radial tire masquerading as seafood.  

“Michigan?  I’ll grant you, the University of Michigan has a terrific fight song.  But nothing beats 30,000 drunken New Englanders singing ‘Sweet Caroline’ and ‘Dirty Water’ at Fenway Park on a Saturday night in July.  Close your eyes and smell the warm beer sloshing in your Dixie cup.  

“Are there any other questions?”

 

 

The headline says it all:  “Shelter-in-place lifted at Monmouth University after curling iron mistaken for weapon” (ABC News Online, March 23).

Don’t fret, Monmouth.  You have plenty of company in the mistaken-identity sweepstakes.  Consider these three incidents from just the past 30 days:

March 2nd:  At Oklahoma State University, a ripe avocado left on a tray in the dining commons was mistaken for a live hand grenade by Mildred Urf, a 72-year-old cashier beloved by students.  Yelling “Save yourselves!” Ms. Urf sprinted toward the tray and jumped, smothering the avocado with her stomach.  She suffered a severe navel bruise and was later awarded the school’s Badge of Courage by OSU President Kayse Shrum.  

March 14th:  Three varsity football players at Louisiana State University, unhappy with their limited playing time last season, mistook a manhole cover on a campus street for the transfer portal to Auburn University.  They proceeded to remove the cover and descend into LSU’s extensive sewer system.  They were found six days later, “stinking to high heaven,” according to the school’s police chief.  “There’s not enough AXE Body Spray in the entire universe to get them smelling decent again.”

March 22nd:  An adjunct instructor at the College of William and Mary was mistaken for a tenure-track faculty member and allowed to sit in the “Professorial Section” at a campus-wide meeting.  When the error was discovered, the instructor, a male, resisted being relocated to the block of seats reserved for part-time faculty and women at the rear of the auditorium.  A scuffle ensued and an officer was bitten, but it’s not clear by whom.   The incident is currently under investigation.  

QUICK!!!  Is that thing in the middle of the quad a stray Birkenstock sandal or an Improvised Explosive Device???

A recent national survey found that 58.5% of college students are reluctant to discuss at least one of the following hot-button topics in class: race, gender, politics, religion, and sexual orientation (Chronicle of Higher Education, March 22nd online). 

58.5% may seem high, but it pales in comparison to 97%, which is the percentage of students who absolutely refuse to talk in class about any of the following: differential calculus, amoebic dysentery, the Code of Hammurabi, the Oxford comma, and Gallium, the 31st element in the Periodic Table.  

Consider the case of Terrance Flish, a sophomore at Florida State University.  He claims that differential calculus is his personal “trauma trigger.”  “Last week my Math professor called on me to explain the difference between differential calculus and integral calculus.  I froze, and then totally lost bowel control right in front of everyone.  The professor made fun of me and joked that my large intestine had emptied so completely that I should go to Walgreens for a free colonoscopy.  I was mortified.  Later, I was even more mortified when I discovered that Walgreens doesn’t perform colonoscopies.”

At Muhlenberg College, an English professor asked Melanie Nulf-Petras what her opinion was of the Oxford comma.  “I passed out,” she reports.  “Now I have nightmares nearly every night about writing sentences that contain lists, and the medication I’m taking for the dreams is causing my eyebrows to grow down the sides of my cheeks.  My life is beyond horrible.” 

An ROTC instructor at Sam Houston State University asked freshman Matthew Capsaicin to recite Law 110 from the Code of Hammurabi.  As Capsaicin recounts the incident, “I panicked and said, ‘Thou shalt not wear white after Labor Day’.  [The correct answer: ‘If a sister of god opens a tavern, or enters a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death’.]  The instructor yelled ‘WRONG!’ and proceeded to pull a pistol from his pants pocket and shoot me twice in the left leg, right below the knee.  Two weeks later I was cut from the varsity basketball team and lost my athletic scholarship.  My parents were not happy.”

Yes, college students are afraid to talk in class.

And it looks like they should be.  

In recent months, U.S. News & World Report has been taking more body blows than Michael B. Jordan in Creed III, as one high-profile school after another refuses to participate in the magazine’s annual college and university rankings. 

On Wednesday, however, the Report bounced off the ropes and landed a punch of its own, unveiling a new dimension that will, in the words of company CEO Eric Gertler, “help ensure the validity of our college prestige rankings for decades to come.”

Dubbed “G-7,“ it measures the grandeur of a school’s inauguration ceremony for a new president or chancellor.

A college or university’s G-7 score will incorporate the following components:

INAUGURATION VENUE

100 pts.:  Cathedral (at least 300 years old)

50 pts.:  Cathedral (less than 300 years old)

5 pts.:  Anywhere else

WHO ATTENDS THE INAUGURATION IN AN OFFICIAL CAPACITY?

100 pts.:  Monarchs, Potentates, Prime Ministers, Overlords, etc. 

90 pts.:  Nobel Prize winners in STEM fields

85 pts.:  Neil deGrasse Tyson

80 pts.:  George Clooney

75 pts.:  Football coaches from the Southeastern Conference (SEC)

70 pts.:  College and university presidents with a Ph.D. 

65 pts.:  College and university presidents without a Ph.D. 

60 pts.:  Head of the faculty union (not wearing a protest sign)

50 pts.:  Chair of the Core Curriculum Committee

45 pts.:  Emeritus professors (cognitively intact)

40 pts.:  Emeritus professors (not quite cognitively intact)

35 pts.:  Student government presidents with at least a 2.75 GPA

30 pts.:  Adjunct faculty with a minimum of 30 teaching credits

25 pts.:  Live poultry from a neighboring institution’s School of Agriculture (must be wearing ceremonial robes)

15 pts.:  A bucket of KFC donated by a local franchisee

-10 pts.:  Head of the faculty union (wearing a protest sign) 

INAUGURAL MUSIC

100 pts.:  Symphony composed by John Williams especially for the event

75 pts.:  Barry Manilow medley performed by the school’s marching band

50 pts.:  Star-Spangled Banner sung by a sophomore Music major with a head cold

20 pts.:  Pre-recorded “Tunes to Twerk By” played by a local DJ

FEATURED SPEAKER

100 pts.:  Jon Stewart

80 pts.:  Patrick Stewart

40 pts.:  Rod Stewart

30 pts.:  Stewie (from “Family Guy”)

10 pts.:  Martha Stewart

ATTIRE FOR POST-INAUGURATION RECEPTION

100 pts.:  Formal wear featured in the New York Times Style Magazine

70 pts.:  Sweats

30 pts.:  Anything from the “Trailer Park” rack at David’s Bridal

RECEPTION HORS D’OEUVRES

100 pts.:  Shrimp cocktail (with sauce)

90 pts.:  Shrimp cocktail (without sauce)

80 pts.:  Cheese bits (with toothpicks)

70 pts.:  Cheese bits (without toothpicks)

60 pts.:  Hummus (with crackers)

50 pts.:  Hummus (without crackers)

40 pts.:  Turkey jerky

30 pts.:  No-salt Cheez-Its

RECEPTION BEVERAGES

100 pts.:  Wine

90 pts.:  Beer in wine glasses

80 pts.:  Beer in glass bottles

70 pts.:  Beer in cans

60 pts.:  Beer in 20-ounce stadium cups

50 pts.:  Breast milk

40 pts.:  Tap water

30 pts.:  Pedialyte Grape 

Immediately following the U.S. News & World Report press conference introducing the inauguration factor, Harvard and Yale Law Schools announced that they would resume participating in the ranking process.  As Harvard Law Dean John F. Manning put it, “we’re back in the game, baby, with gold-tasseled loafers on both feet!”  

 

Controversy briefly swirled on social media last month after a Latina was crowned Miss Coppin State University.  Coppin State is an HBCU in Maryland, with only 3% of its student body identifying as Latino or Hispanic (The Baltimore Banner, February 4th online).  

Upon hearing this news, Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida and champion of no-nonsense higher education, issued an Executive Order designed to prevent such an occurrence from ever happening in the Sunshine State. 

Beginning July 1st, 2023, all Florida HBCU pageant contestants must submit, as part of their application portfolio, a complete DNA profile generated by either 23andMe or Ancestry.com.  They will need to demonstrate at least 90% Black heritage in order to move forward in the competition.  

“It’s the least we can do to protect the integrity of these contests,” says DeSantis.  “Indeed, I look forward to the day when a DNA requirement will apply to anyone who even seeks admission to a Florida HBCU.  Let’s face it, the sooner that every college and university in the nation replaces the SAT and ACT with genetic testing, the better off we’ll all be.  It’s time to sort out, once and for all, who belongs where.

“I’m Ron DeSantis, and I approved this message.”

On February 17th the Chronicle (p. 60) published a thought-provoking essay on the phenomenon of “ghosting” in academia.  Coincidentally, this article appeared on the 70th anniversary of one of the most notorious instances of the other “G” word — “gaslighting” — in the history of higher education: Dartmouth’s Dark Night.

Read and weep. 

On Monday, February 16, 1953, Gabriel “Gabe” Mussum, a freshly minted Stanford PhD, arrived at the Hanover Inn on the campus of Dartmouth College.  On Tuesday he would begin two days of interviews for an assistant-professor position in the school’s Department of History.  He checked in without incident.  

By midday on Tuesday the 17th it had become clear to both the History Department Chair and the Dean of Arts and Sciences that Mussum was not a good fit.  Most egregiously, he combed his hair straight back in an era when virtually all male faculty members at Dartmouth parted their hair on the right.  

When Gabe returned to the Hanover Inn on Monday evening, he discovered that his room key did not work.  He went downstairs to the front desk, where he was told that no one named “Mussum” was registered at the Inn.  This information came from Bernice, the same woman who had checked him in the night before.  Bernice now claimed that she had never encountered Gabe on Monday. 

Bewildered, Gabe scurried across Dartmouth College Green to the building where the Dean’s office was located, hoping to find him still there despite the late hour.  Indeed, the Dean had not yet left, but he simply stared blankly at Gabe and declared, “I have no idea who you are, young man.”  

Gabe returned to the Inn, only to find out that it was fully booked for the night.  Bernice suggested that he walk to a nearby Motel 6, which was a little over a mile away.  He departed just as it began to snow heavily.  It turned out to be the biggest snowstorm of the season: 26 inches in 4 hours.  

Gabe never arrived at the Motel 6.  On February 22nd a cross-country skier noticed a frozen human leg sticking out of a snowbank on the edge of the Dartmouth campus.  The leg was attached to Gabe Mussum. 

The case remained unsolved until 1997, when the long-retired Dean of Arts and Sciences was receiving last rites on his deathbed from a Catholic priest.  The Dean confessed: “I’ve carried this horrible secret with me for 44 years. We were just trying to save a little money on hotel expenses, that’s all.  Dartmouth’s endowment was a lot smaller back then.  I authorized the entire deception, including the changing of the lock on the door.  Am I going to Hell, Father?”

“I’m afraid so, my son.  I’ll be recommending it.”

Legend has it that the ghost of Gabe Mussum can be seen walking slowly across the Dartmouth College Green every February 17th at midnight.  He wears a tweed jacket and carries a doctoral dissertation.  His hair is parted on the right.  

 

 

Devotees of academic-freedom controversies in higher education have been following with great interest the ongoing saga of Hamline University, the St. Paul, MN school that fired an adjunct faculty member after she displayed an artistic depiction of the Prophet Muhammed in class — and a student complained (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 13th online).  

But now, Ground Zero for Divinity-Related Kerfuffles has shifted to Indiana, where a history professor at Valparaiso University was discharged last week after showing a Mormon painting of Jesus Christ in his senior seminar, “Utah: State, or State of Mind?”  

A male sophomore in the course said he was traumatized by the portrait, which, he claims, makes Jesus resemble “the love child of Kenny Loggins and one of the Beach Boys.  There’s no way the Son of God could look like that.  Everyone knows that the real Jesus bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Mick Jagger, leader of the world’s greatest rock-and-roll band.  Just watch any YouTube video of Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount during his legendary Water-into-Wine concert tour in Northern Israel two-thousand years ago; he moves just like Mick does on stage when he’s performing Start Me Up.”

In announcing the termination of the professor in question, Valparaiso President José Padilla commented that “this student makes a legitimate point.  I’ve seen the video.  Jesus was the original Rolling Stone.  We had no choice but to take action.”  

 

 

As Charles Dickens recently observed, it is the “worst of times” in higher education.  College classrooms have become battlegrounds, belittled by conservatives as enclaves of leftist indoctrination and scorned by liberals as political minefields where free speech is threatened even as microaggressions and traumatizing triggers run rampant.  

Is there any way out of this mess?

Florida State University thinks so.

Beginning in the fall of 2023, FSU’s Sociology Department will offer Void 101, a three-credit, Pass-Fail, content-free elective course. 

According to Department Chair Clyde Fliff, “nothing will happen in Void 101.  This in-person course will meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:30 am to 10:45 am, but no one will say anything during that time.  Students will sit silently for the entire period, as will the instructor.  This will eliminate the possibility of problematic interactions taking place.  Students who refrain from speaking for the entire semester will receive a final grade of Pass.

“The goal of Void 101 is to cleanse students’ minds of troubling, as well as untroubling, thoughts.  The only required text is a blank Moleskine diary.  If a student has a cognition at any point during a class session, he or she will write that thought down in the diary, tear out the page, and burn it after leaving the room.  In Void 101, an educated mind is one that is clear and free of debris, like a cloudless sky on a summer’s day in Tallahassee.  By the end of the course, high-achieving students should have nothing to write about in their diaries. 

“For far too long — indeed, centuries — colleges and universities have been obsessed with trying to fill students’ heads with content in the form of information, ideas, and values.  This needs to stop.  The time has come to empty those precious heads and take higher education to the next level.”

Students will not be allowed to visit the bathroom during meetings of Void 101, since doing so could serve as a trigger for those who might have been bedwetters as children.  

Plans are under way to introduce Void 102 (Advanced Void) in the spring of 2024.  In Void 102 total silence will still be observed in the classroom, but thinking about Division I college football will be encouraged.