April 7, 2016

It's been another week where higher education news seems dominated by the extreme.  I can't help wondering about all of us well-intentioned administrators and faculty trying to retain and graduate students, unable to concentrate on those goals because of the insanity that seems to consume academia.  This week alone has seen the following stories:

• Students are occupying the Duke administrative building protesting a culture that appears to have created and protected an executive VP who purposely hit a parking attendant with his car and then followed that with a racial slur;
• A New Jersey college was an elaborate front by Homeland Security to deal with visa fraud;
• George Mason University realized, a little too late, that the Antonin Scalia School of Law might result in an unfortunate acronym;
• Columbia University discovered that their sculpture by famed abstract artist Henry Moore was not universally loved by their students;
• The University of Mississippi decides it needs to distance itself from the governor's new anti-gay law;
• A faculty member at Villanova University was arrested on child pornography charges;
• An Alabama A & M faculty member was fired when videos of him having sex with students surfaced.

Yes, these are just a small sample of the crap that we deal with instead of dealing with the rising costs of tuition and the burden of debt our college students take on, let alone craft a curricula that leads students through their education to that moment when it all gels together.

It's a time like this that higher ed needs a troubadour, a Bob Dylan, to come along and write songs about the world of higher education.

Capstone Blues (to the tune of "Tombstone Blues")

The sweet pretty things are on sit-in of course.
The administrators they're trying to force
The resignation of the back side of a horse.
Blue Devil nation has a need to be nervous.

The ghost of Charles Townes he ethereally shits,
To the injured attendant she violently spits,
A bald wig for Prez Brodhead who sits
At the head of the Office of Lip Service.

Drop-out in the fact'ry,
She ain't heard the news.
Adjunct in the alley
He's lookin' for food.
I'm in the asylum
With the capstone blues.

The illegal alien at the Jersey arcade
Screaming she moans, "I've just been played,"
Then sends out for the lawyer who pulls down the shade,
And says, "My advice is to not let the media in."

Now the Homeland officer comes and he shuffles inside.
He walks with a swagger and to the alien says with snide,
"Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride.
You're not the one we're interested in."

Drop-out in the fact'ry,
She ain't heard the news.
Adjunct in the alley
He's lookin' for food.
I'm in the asylum
With the capstone blues.

Well, Justice Scalia after finishing a brief
Was called to heaven by the ultimate Commander-in-Chief.
Saying, "Tell me great one, if I had just one beef:
Is there a place for my name to get carved in?"

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly.
Saying, "Look down and see what George Mason did try."
And dropping an f-bomb he did let out a cry
Saying, "The Anton Scalia School of Law can not be written."

Drop-out in the fact'ry,
She ain't heard the news
Adjunct in the alley
He's lookin' for food.
I'm in the asylum
With the capstone blues.

To honor the king of Abstraction, his followers did crave;
Put the ugliest statue on campus, sending shock waves.
Moved the P'O'd to petition and a few to sit-in all brave,
In the 21st century's version of unrest.

No student with a blowtorch has turned out on campus
With some redneck townie behind him to trespass
And ridicule something so pompous.
This isn't your grandfather's protest.

Drop-out in the fact'ry,
She ain't heard the news.
Adjunct in the alley
He's lookin' for food.
I'm in trouble
With the capstone blues.

The anatomy of not-so-innocent flesh and moan
Causes U of M Rebels law books to get thrown
At Governor Bryant who's sitting on his throne,
But the tears on his cheeks are from laughter.

A man can no longer give Brother Bill his great thrill.
Mississipi will set him in chains in a jail cell,
Then send out for some pens to write more restrictive bills,
While the rest of us can die unhappily ever after.

Drop-out in the fact'ry,
She ain't heard the news
Adjunct's in the alley
He's lookin' for food.
I'm in the asylum
With the capstone blues.

When Villanova and Alabama A & M profs revealed their bed goal,
Their lawyers got to fatten their bankroll.
And the FAFSA at a profit sells loan notes for the soul
To the line of folks in line at the college.

I wish I could write you a curriculum so plain
That could hold you, dear student, from going insane,
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
From useless and pointless knowledge

Drop-out in the fact'ry,
She ain't heard the news.
Adjunct's in the alley
He's lookin' for food.
I'm in the asylum
With the capstone blues.