Month: October 2019

On The Cost of Silence

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For MARTIN NIEMÖLLER

First they came for the adjuncts, and I did not speak out —because I was not an “adjunct” faculty.

Then they came for the untenured and I did not speak out — because I was not an “untenured” faculty.

Then they came for the senior faculty and I didn’t not speak out — because I was not a “senior” faculty.

Then they came for the “activists, the outspoken, the union members” and I did not speak out — because I was never one of them who spoke for the “oppressed.”

Then they came for the Humanities  and Social Sciences — the Foreign Languages, Art, History, English, Sociology,  Anthropology, Philosophy, Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies, I did not speak out— because I did not belong to “these less profitable disciplines.”

Then they came for the Sciences that were not generating enough revenue, but I did not speak out — because I was in the “Sciences” but in the more profitable sector.

Then they came after a few in the Business, Health Sciences, Sports and Nursing, particularly those who showed signs of empathy for their “less fortunate” colleagues,  but I did not speak out — because I did not have any empathy for the less fortunate.

And then they came after me and my discipline — and there was no one left to speak up for me.

“On Going Out Of Business” OR How to Screw Your Faculty Who Are Not Good For Your Business (SATIRE)

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Action Plan: A Memo from President Mickey Hedgefunds
 MEMORANDUM
To: Faculty at Freedom College
FROM: President Mickey Hedgefunds
DATE: October 11, 2019
SUBJECT: Our Business Is Going Down
By now you must have all read the October 10, 2019 New York Times article “Radical Survival Strategies for Struggling Colleges” that made it clear that “Mergers, acquisitions, shorter degree programs and major shifts in course offerings are just some of the tactics being employed to lure more students.”
Let me cut to the chase. Our business is going down. Like other colleges our business is “flagging.” Our flow of customers has fallen to an all time low.
Make no mistakes, our business is going down! And you are all commodities up for sale. We have not determined each of your appreciation or depreciation values yet, because it all depends upon how much our “new” customers are willing to pay for your various useless services.
If your majors/programs have been revenue-generating in the last five years (based on the reports prepared for us by the premier consulting firm Screw Your Faculty that we had hired 2 years ago for 1.5 million), then rest assured that your valuation and buy-out incentives will be much higher than the rest of your colleagues who are just occupying spaces. Screw Your Faculty have rated the departments and programs that are teaching our customers “to imagine this and imagine that” to have very low yields, and have made a special recommendation that many of these faculty offices should be rented to local businesses to generate revenue. Our CFO have concluded that renting out office spaces will help the college significantly in addressing it budget gap of 1.5 million dollars.
Our business is going down! And we need to change the name of our college immediately from Freedom College to Freedom Corporation, LLC. A new survey by Bogus.com has indicated that the majority of our current customers have never heard the term “college,” but 89.3% of them are familiar with the model of a limited liability corporation.
Our business is going down! And your retirement benefits are being too expensive to maintain for the long-term survival of our corporation. So, we have decided to cut them into half. Our BOT, which mostly comprises of CEO’s from Fortune 500 companies, have endorsed this idea with much enthusiasm.
Our business is going down! And who needs tenured faculty when they can be replaced by all newly minted PhD’s and adjuncts living below the poverty level and are eager to join our limited liability corporation. Our BOT has also approved that we can now hire cheap contract labors for programs that are experiencing growth. As a bonus we will provide our new employees with free parking permits and dental insurance for free flossing for their first year of service at Freedom Corporation.
Our business is going down! And we need acquisitions and mergers. Although the Chronicle has clearly said that “A Merger Won’t Save Your College,” but we don’t care. We have just begun negotiations with “The Home Based Business Institute,” a for-profit company located in Los Angeles for a potential merger with Freedom Corporation where our customers can be their own bosses. This is exactly what “private companies [sic] do to increase their size and cost-effectiveness.” We will market this new program in “Home Business Management” with a simple message: If your goal in life is to become rich, then you have come to the right place.
We will also be offering a certificate program in “Fulfillment by Apricot” (FBA Program) ––which will allow our customers to market their own products through the world’s largest retail platform in the world. Our budding entrepreneurs will only be paying a small monthly storage fees while FBA will be handling all customer service queries. This will be one of our distinctive programs minting money like never before!
Our business is going down! And we desperately need to create various training facilities to create a workforce where our customers will become entrepreneurs. For instance our newly formed “Innovation Council” has decided to bypass your cumbersome faculty governance process and have just approved a new major in “Storage Management” starting in Spring 2020. If you have not noticed, storage facilities are a booming business.
Our business is going down! And we are changing the mission of Freedom Corporation to reflect the mission of trade schools. While we can no longer afford to provide our customers an all rounded liberal arts education, we are committed to “graduat[ing] students who will make a tangible and constructive difference in the world.” Our new customers will be enrolling in courses for writing memos, designing brochures and pamphlets, a two-week language proficiency requirement to say “hello” and “thank you for your business” in at least two different foreign languages, along with a brief practicum in public speaking. In addition, our students in the Nursing and Health Sciences programs will fulfill their requirement in “Empathy Studies” by selecting ONE COURSE ONLY from art, theater, music, philosophy, English, creative writing, religion, sociology, political science and history.
Our business is going down and just like those “other institutions” we are also “trying to cash in on the growing impatience among students and their parents about how long it takes to earn degrees.” In our 3+1 year model, our customers will graduate with a Bachelor in Entrepreneurship Management along with a Master’s degree from “The Home Based Business Institute” PLUS a certificate from our distinctive Fulfillment by Apricot program. This will be our model of survival of the fittest!
Our business is going down! And we have to pay attention to who exactly are our new customers. My cabinet (that does not include any faculty) has discovered that we need to lure the large demographics of first generation students of color.
We will be reaching out to you soon to write brief letters in Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Tagalog, Chinese, Hindi, Somali, Cantonese, Mandarin, Maay-Maay, Hmong, Swahili, Thai, Cambodian and others. Our Spanish faculty will be writing letters to our large demographics of Hispanic customers, but we would like the rest of you to acquire some customer service skills. We strongly encourage you to contact our “Provost for Letter Writing” indicating interest in the language of your choice. Provost Rosetta will provide you with a brief software called “Hoogle Translator” to help you write these letters. In these letters we highly encourage you to mention that our goal is to make the American dream accessible to our “first generation” customers of color by guaranteeing that they will become rich if they chose to join Freedom Corporation. We will also be inviting their entire family (admitted students only) for a potluck dinner organized by our “Empathy Studies” faculty and sponsored by our Multicultural and Equity in Education Programs.
Finally, I cannot emphasize enough that our business is going down! But we cannot not hire more administrators. The gains from cutting your retirement benefits permanently is allowing us to now hire two new administrators: Provost of Brainstorming” and “Chief Amazement Officer” for the promotion of neoliberal innovations.
Please join me with a great applause in embracing these changes as we shift our outdated nonprofit model of serving our students in our precious Freedom College to serving our customers in our “for-profit” model (where everyone is we guaranteed more debt) in Freedom Corporation, LLC. I am looking forward to seeing you at the faculty retreat where I will unveil my plans for our Freedom Corporation, LLC. Please bring your own granola bars and Kombucha drinks. These are hard times!

 

This satire has been published in Entropy.