The Administration’s Point of View: You See Students, We See Warm Bodies Or No, Skippy, You Really DO Have What It Takes To Be A Physicist Or A Historian Or A Biologist Or…
-No matter what those stupid professors tell you.
-Even if your GPA is 1.2.
-Even if it has been 1.2 for three years. We like you. We believe in you.
-We will shine you on forever, or until you or your parents run out of money, or until the Feds say you aren’t getting another dime from them, either. Or until you have racked up at least $97,000 in student loans, which you will never be able to pay back. The reason you will never be able to pay it back is because a BA in Communications (at SOME schools, that is) is a “fries-with-that” degree. Oh, no one told you? Oops. Sorry. (No, now, you’re not walking away completely empty-handed, as it were, with a BA in Comm. You have acquired some modicum of forked-tongue speech that, given just the right circumstances, could serve you nicely in the future, but enough about that).
-Plagiarism is purely subjective. Of course, you had the exact same idea, and are every bit as smart as Voltaire. You made like Frank Sinatra and said it your way, after all. Smart and original, that’s you. We get you. Dr. Dinkle is a supercilious idiot.
-You are SO smart, you were able to boil down an entire book on the Ottoman Empire and sum it all up in eight short pages, using a scathingly brilliant economy of words. Your instructor is not worthy. The entire department is not worthy.
-You are absolutely right: you do not have to use proper grammar if you are writing a lab report for a science class.
-Yes, Pook, again, you are right on the money, you should never have to take a math class because you are an English major. (Right-brain, left-brain.) You have no interest whatsoever in a “broad-based liberal arts education”, in fact, you have no idea what “broad-based” truly means. We are working like crazy to dumb down every curriculum we can and we are so sorry we did not do it time for you. Please don’t be bitter.
Look at it this way: in a few years, you can return and get the easiest M.A. or M.S. in anything at all, and actually, you won’t have to return in the physical sense, you will be able to take all of your grad courses via cell phone. Just think, you could be texting your thesis to your professor while you are driving to Maine to hang your toes over the REAL lands’ end! You could do it while heading to Ohio, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
-So you missed nine class sessions, what’s the big deal? Dr. Blather is such a tool!
-Your grandmother died and the midterm is tomorrow. What an unfortunate coincidence! This has never happened before! Of course, you may be excused from taking it because we understand that, at the age of 19, you are now the family patriarch and must be gone for three weeks. We hear it is very nice in Florida this time of year! We wouldn’t dream of asking for any proof whatsoever, either. The fact that all of your grades so far are averaging below “D” is no problem, completely irrelevant. Your teacher is a non-tenured faculty member and we will make sure she works with you. Trust us. We will.
-We TOtally respect your right to come to class in your robe and pajamas. After all, you do live in the dorms! Not only that, but we made you buy a “food plan”, which means you have to eat the yucko-ptooey food at “The Trough” every day for nine months.
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