The Faculty Beautification Plan

Bad news for those of us who look like English professors: an article on Inside Higher Ed reports on a new study that found a correlation between "hotness"and positive evaluations on RateMyProfessors.com:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/08/rateprof
This is not the first time studies have discovered a link between professorial attractiveness and positive evaluations, but instead of griping, I propose a solution: if colleges really care about student engagement in learning, it's time for every institution of higher education to institute a Faculty Beautification Plan.

Liposuction. Botox. Tanning beds. Weekly pedicures. On-site hair stylists and makeup artists. Personal wardrobe consultants. These are the educational reforms that will make a real difference in the classroom, and while the initial cost might be a bit steep, the program will pay for itself in the long term as students flock to fill the classrooms of newly attractive professors.

But what about professors who resist beautification? That's when we call in the Surrogate Professors, a crack team of attractive figureheads who stand in front of a classroom looking good and spouting words piped into a hidden earpiece while the actual professor remains comfortably out of sight. Students will be so distracted by the Surrogate Professor's physical assets that they won't notice her inability to distinguish radon from a radio, and if the Surrogate Professor causes a disaster in chem lab, at least students will find the class memorable (especially those with the acid burns on their arms).

It's time for colleges to stop hiring faculty based on academic credentials and start including a swimsuit competition in the hiring process. We need to stop counting scholarly citations in favor of applicants who have appeared on People's Most Beautiful People list, and let's toss out the "collegiality" quotient in favor of "date-ability."

Of course, the plan won't work unless reforms are instituted at every level. Graduate programs will have to dramatically increase their production of attractive Ph.D.s, and the easiest way to accomplish that will be to admit into their programs only highly attractive students. Where will they find a large pool of hot students? At the undergraduate level, of course, which means undergraduate institutions will have to step up their production of attractive students as well. So the first step in the Faculty Beautification Plan would be for all institutions of higher education to reject all applicants who fail to earn high marks on the "hotness" scale.

Let's face it: privileging the life of the mind simply enables unattractiveness. It's time for colleges to stop offering refuge to people with Einsteinian hair. The fast-food industry offers a handy solution for that problem: the hair net. What every college needs to succeed in today's market is to fill every classroom with students who look like models and place in front of them a professor who looks like Tom Cruise.

Where will all the ugly people go? Sorry, that problem is outside the scope of the grant.