Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Promises, Promises

My first act on being elected Faculty Chair will be to demand a recount. There must be some logical explanation for this stunning result. I suspect hanging chads.

Next, I'll take advantage of the fact that fully half of the members of next year's Faculty Council are English professors and institute a series of sweeping reforms on campus. We'll establish a crack squad of Grammar Police armed with red pens and authorized to issue citations to anyone apprehended in the commission of a solecism.

Classes will be cancelled on T.S. Eliot's birthday, Bloomsday, and the first day the trilliums bloom in spring.

Every student will be required to recite Donne's "Meditation 17" from memory before receiving a diploma.

New faculty members will be required to wear beanies embellished with the college logo; beanieless newbies will be required to sing the Alma Mater on demand and pay a steep fine if they bobble the high notes.

In order to study effective models of academic leadership, the entire Faculty Council will take a two-week fact-finding excursion to London and Paris. How will this junket be funded in these bleak economic times? Simple: Faculty members will be required to pay-to-play in faculty meetings. The first 30 seconds of speech will remain free, but speakers will pay tolls based on a sliding scale keyed to years in rank. Further hefty fines will be imposed upon anyone slipping into the subjunctive mood. (Would that it were so!)

Finally, Faculty Council will finally find a solution to that serious problem that is always with us but no one seems willing to tackle. I refer, of course, to the weather. If our campus leadership is unwilling or unable to ensure a comfortable working environment both inside and outside the buildings, then who needs 'em?

2 comments:

Quackademic said...

I call the question!

Joy said...

Isn't the team of Dyson/Baudo building a dome over campus to keep out that nasty weather?