New Salem University

by Bill Curtis

“Why does Socrates end the dialogue by talking about a myth of all things? Isn’t that puzzling? Isn’t myth the very antithesis of philosophy?” The professor surveyed the room and the six students it held. Three were noticeably lost in their laptops, eyes dancing over the screens as fingers tapped quietly. The other trio looked on with numb, end-of-the-term expressions. Only a couple of minutes left. He continued, “One interpretation of the Myth of Er in Book 10 is that it signifies Socrates’ fundamental failure in The Republic: he has failed to persuade Glaucon that the philosophical life is the truly just life, which also is the happiest life. One must pursue philosophy if one wants to be good and live well. Socrates recognizes, however, that Glaucon doesn’t understand this. Therefore, he makes a last-ditch effort to get Glaucon to moderate his worldly ambitions by presenting the soul of Odysseus in the Myth.” The professor raised his eyebrows in emphasis, to little effect. “Odysseus, the cleverest of Homer’s great heroes, learned his life’s lesson that fame and glory are not the path to happiness. For its next incarnation, Odysseus’ soul therefore chooses the quiet life of a private man who does nothing of note, nothing that he will be remembered for. Because Glaucon cannot be turned to philosophy through the dialectic, maybe the mythical example of the formidable Odysseus will show him that power, wealth, and reputation are not all they’re cracked up to be.” The professor paused again. He had lost his audience, but habit impelled him to finish. “But Glaucon does not listen. The historical Glaucon, Plato’s older brother, was killed fighting in a skirmish on the road between the Piraeus and Athens, the very road on which the action of The Republic begins in Book 1, if you remember. Glaucon, you see, threw his lot in with the Thirty Tyrants of Athens, the violent, repressive regime that the Spartans installed in 404 BC after they had defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War. He died at the hands of the faction that overthrew the Tyrants to restore democracy to Athens. Glaucon thus rejected Socrates’ wisdom and instead pursued political power, even at the price of committing injustice, a price so often paid by the power-hungry, no? And he met his gruesome fate. When we consider The Republic in light of this, we might therefore see it as Plato’s eulogy for his ethically flawed big brother, in addition to being the most famous argument for philosophy and justice . . . . Are there any questions?”

Twenty-two had registered for the class – PHL 374 Ancient Greek Ethics – at the beginning of the semester. That was a good size, the professor had thought: enough for a diversity of voices in class discussion and not too much grading. But now, only six; class discussion had all but withered away. Truth be told, however, the professor was impressed that even The Six continued to show after the administration had announced over Fall Break that the college would no longer be giving grades. Indeed, many of his colleagues had no students attending their classes at all, and thus stopped bothering to show up themselves. He took the attendance of The Six as a point of pride, a sign that his craft, honed by so many years in the classroom, was worthy.

“All right, well, ah, thank you.” The professor gathered up his weathered copy of The Republic of Plato (Allan Bloom, trans.) to mumbled thank-you’s as the students filed out of the room. It was the last class of his two-decades-long teaching career, though he wasn’t retiring like many of the faculty. Even if he had wanted to, his TIAA-CREF account dictated that he still had many years of work ahead of him, the wages of starting one’s career and saving for retirement in one’s mid-30’s.

In fact, this class was the last class that would be taught at New Salem University. “Abolishing the traditional class-based structure of the curriculum.” This was the centerpiece of the new strategic plan just rolled out by the administration. Academic classes were a thing of the past. This had not exactly come as a surprise. The writing had been on the wall when the New Core Curriculum had been introduced and implemented three years earlier. The old Core hadn’t been ideal in anyone’s eyes. It required the students to take an array of classes from the different departments with the aim of giving them a common exposure to the fundamentals of a liberal arts education. But there were, as always, disagreements about what the fundamentals were, and you could only require students to take so many courses outside of their majors. Should students have to take two history courses (one American, one “non-Western”) or just one? How many social science classes should they take? One for each of the four main disciplines: economics, political science, psychology, and sociology? Almost no one thought that was reasonable, though some insisted that an American Politics course was a sine qua non of a New Salem education. Yet it wasn’t one of the Core requirements. Definitely a philosophy course (ethics, maybe?) and some sort of introduction to literature (must it include a Shakespeare module?), and same with mathematics. And so forth. Debate was always intense but also mostly at the margins.

The New Core, however, changed the game. Although to what? It was unclear. Indeed, few of the faculty would claim they fully understood how it worked. That’s why the Office of the New Core Curriculum had to be created and staffed. Headed by a well-respected Psychology Department faculty member, it was there to assist both students and faculty alike in navigating the subtleties of the New Core. Although the professor had always had difficulties following the guidance that ONCC was weekly issuing, the administration seemed to have judged that it was effective in its mission since its budget and staff kept increasing, and the psychologist-director had been relieved of his teaching duties to devote himself to ONCC full time. The latter development seemed indicative of an alarming trend: more and more professors recruited into administration and teaching less and less. But now it all made sense given that classes would no longer be taught.

The professor had been present when the New Core was announced at a Faculty Senate meeting. In the weeks prior to the meeting, the administration had held a dozen, catered “listening sessions” with faculty and selected students to promote the plan. The professor’s Philosophy Department colleague (a Hume specialist), who had attended one of the sessions, wryly claimed that they were all just being “softened up,” the catering (which was delectable) was “fatting the calf for the slaughter.” The professor had naively protested in response that surely if it was that bad the Senate would vote it down. His colleague had erupted in guffaws and had almost patted the professor on the head. The pitch for the New Core, he related, was saturated with the language of “social justice” and DEIJA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Activism). “If you want anything at the college these days, all you have to do is use the lingo and no one dare oppose you. Magic words,” he had said.

The Humean was right about the fecklessness of the Senate. In fact, the professor noted that, depressingly, about half the Senate, mostly the younger members, seemed to genuinely support what appeared to the professor’s antiquated eyes to be a Rube Goldbergian curricular travesty. The presentation was impressive. The provost, flanked by sundry and suited associate and assistant provosts, confidently assured the Senate that New Salem University was about to embark on a new era of education, one marked by “an abiding commitment to social justice and DEIJA . . . .” His words were given authority by a dazzling PowerPoint slide show that flashed in gleeful colors behind him. There were, of course, multiple slides with a Benneton ad’s diversity of students enthusiastically enjoying their New Core classes taught by brilliantly smiling professors (who also looked like former Benneton models). There were graphs with bars of cerulean, magenta, lime, and tangerine; pie charts with slices of ultramarine, rosso corsa, kelly, and egg yolk. But the capper, the pièce de resistance, was the “Rainbow Bridge” (which the Humean started referring to as the “Bifrost to Hel,” often singing the phrase to the tune of the iconic AC/DC ode). It consisted of eight colored bands, each representing a “Habit of Learning.” These habits consisted of: History and Imperialism, Global Colonial Consciousness, Quantitative Analysis and Injustice, Cultural Humility, Indigenous Perspectives, Social Justice and Activism, The Scientific Method and Privilege, and Understanding Ethnic Studies.

As the provost dilated on the greater range of choice the students would have in the New Core, the professor focused on the Rainbow Bridge slide and tried to comprehend it. It started on the left with the eight glowing, articulated bands but as one scanned right, the bands started to intertwine. The provost explained that different, appropriate classes could be categorized in various ways. Vertical lines divided the bands into segments that indicated levels of classes. Introductory courses would fit one Habit of Learning, but upper-division classes could be cross-listed among the various habits, as the slide clearly showed. The professor’s eyes followed the interweaving, writhing bands to the right side of the slide. The introductory courses in the New Core were designated “Foundational Courses,” while the upper-division courses would now be designated “X-Courses.” Mesmerized by the pulsing colors, the professor missed the explanation for the terminology. He asked the person sitting next him. “X-Course” stood for “Exploratory Course.” Ah. As the professor gazed at the slide trying to understand what was happening at the kaleidoscopic far right side, the provost signaled to a subaltern and the slide switched to another Benneton ad of students. He ended the presentation by exhorting the audience, half of which was enraptured, the other half quietly annoyed, to start considering which of their classes best cultivated which of the habits, and how they could change their course offerings to make the New Core a smashing success. He further announced the creation of the ONCC, which would have the authority to determine which classes were acceptable.

“But we do still have to put it to a vote, of course,” the provost chuckled, raising his hands as if flagging traffic to stop. “Do we have a motion to put the New Core to a vote?” An Ethnic Studies faculty member, specialist in Blaxploitation cinema and intersectionality, shot up their nonbinary arm. Well, in retrospect, that made sense to the professor, who in the moment sat there dumbfounded. The Ethnic Studies Department had their own designated habit, meaning that all NSU students would have to take an ES class . . . or maybe even more than one. It was tough to tell, but it was clear that the New Core was good for Ethnic Studies as a going concern.

“Do we have a se . . . .” A shrill “second!” cut the provost off. It was a Communication Studies professor well known for her frequent, public philippics against what she called the “CHeWMPs”: Cis-gendered, Heterosexual, White, Male, Privileged persons. In this vein, she had taken to referring to herself by the egregious portmanteau, “scholagitator,” and had a tic of incessantly emphasizing her “allyship” to the BIPOC or otherwise marginalized communities. Of course, she was married to a CHeWMP (who worked in finance) and was even the mother to three young CHeWMPs. The Humean had always been impressed by her feats of cognitive dissonance . . . .

“Excuse me!” An intrusive voice shattered the atmosphere of self-congratulation. A CHeWMP voice. “Can we have some discussion about this first, please? This is still a deliberative body, right?” The voice belonged to an assistant political science professor. The bonhomie faded from the provost’s face.

“Yes, Professor Johnson. Of course. Go ahead.”

The august body, collective lips pursed, turned its attention to the graceless CHeWMP.

“I’m sorry, but this whole thing sounds like someone went to a conference for college administrators and came back with the latest fad. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why this is necessary. Yes, the current Core could use some tweaks. But this . . . this is just not the fix we need. First, why is there so much emphasis on giving the students more choice? Isn’t the point of a Core Curriculum that we, the professional educators, determine what the students should learn? Second, implementation is going to be a logistical nightmare. And for what? The best-case scenario is that this marginally improves the Core at the cost of a lot of man hours. At worst, this will be a complete debacle that will totally confuse the students. Especially the weakest students, by the way, if that’s whom we profess to care about. As we say in poli sci, complexity is a tax on the disadvantaged.”

Eager to defend her boss, a testy associate provost leapt into the breach. “I don’t think you understand the proposed changes! This will absolutely benefit marginalized and minoritized students. It focuses directly on their interests and needs.” The Senate began to rumble with debate, and the provost acted to settle it down.

“Ok, Ok! We’ve already had a motion for a vote, so let us proceed,” he said. Johnson (the CHeWMP) attempted to protest but was shouted down by a group of young Senators.

The vote was 46-1.

The professor paused on the way out of his now-empty classroom and emitted a weary, nostalgic sigh. He closed the door on the desks and chalkboards and, he thought to himself, on his life as a teacher. As he walked across the late-afternoon campus to his office, memories welled up in his consciousness. Students were playing frisbee in the quad as they always did. A pink plastic disk floated over the leaping reach of a neon-bikini-topped coed and landed at the professor’s feet. She flounced over to retrieve the toy. Her tanned, ripe décolletage nearly liberated itself as she stooped to pick it up. She looked up at him with a coy smile, and then rose and spun to whiz the disk to her mates. In younger days, the professor would have been seized by a vampiric lust at this display (particularly when he was feeling his oats in the wake of his first book – The Ethics of Heraclitus – published by Princeton University Press, no less). Now, however, nothing. Like old Cephalus, he had apparently been released from the madness of sexual desire. The scene, however, did transport him back a decade or so.

The verdant campus had been suffused by one of those sublime Indian Summer days. (Can we still say “Indian Summer,” or is that verboten?) The shrubbery glowed warmly as near-naked students cavorted on manicured lawns or lounged in the shade of the great oaks that lined the quad. Yet the eminent scholar at the professor’s side exhibited unmistakable signs of agitation and, yes, pique. He hunched his gaunt form along, dandruff frosting the narrow shoulders of his black velvet sports jacket. He failed to appreciate the abundance of fresh, floral air that engulfed them. Glancing about like a peevish raptor, he began alternately wringing his hands and rubbing his temples as they strolled along the flower-lined walkway. He scowled at the students, sending wrinkles like fracture lines to the apex of his mottled forehead before they disappeared into a wispy gray mane. This whole demeanor was very in character for Ruben Baruch Himmelfarb, Ph.D., who was not only the Harold and Janice Rigby Distinguished Professor of Ethics at Harvard’s Sullivan Institute of Bioethics, but also the President’s “Culture Czar”: Chair of the Presidential Council on the Health of American Society. And, no, it didn’t actually have anything to do with health. The position was a product of that bizarre, politico-intellectual phenomenon that inhabited the White House at the time: a Southern evangelical president who had surrounded himself with urbane, atheist, Jewish advisors who looked to devout Catholic intellectuals to provide public justifications for their neoconservative policies.

The professor felt compelled to break the uncomfortable silence. He rummaged in his pantry of pretentious references and made a stab at politically appropriate conversation with the Czar.

“It’s all sweetness and light for these pampered children of late modernity, eh, Ruben?” The professor feigned solemnity. “Like Gray’s Etonians: ‘Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise.’”

Himmelfarb grunted in approval. “Yes, look at them!” He sneered, eyes narrowed in erotic disgust. “Do you know that there is likely not a follicle of pubic hair on any of them?”

“Really?” The professor was already regretting he’d said anything.

“Yes. They all shave, clip, pluck, and wax till it’s all gone. Even the young men. They call it ‘manscaping,’ you know. As if their manhoods were of no more significance than a piece of turf. And the mons veneris each of these young ladies is as bare as a six-year-old’s.”

Very in character. Himmlefarb had once penned a notorious screed denouncing the eating of hotdogs at baseball games:

“This particularly uncivilized form of public eating – which the properly-mannered know to be uncouth in all its forms – is an atavism reminiscent of our pagan and cannibal past. When one sees a young woman, for instance, probably crowned with a de-gendering “ball cap,” chomping away on one of these culinary abominations, brightly colored condiments running down her chin and onto her hands, one cannot help but be reminded of the savage maenads in Euripides’ Bacchae. . . . It is not so much that consuming a Fenway Frank while watching the Red Sox valiantly prevail over the Yankees has dire implications for public decency. It is that this habit is representative of a class of habits that proliferates wildly in our culture, which dilutes human dignity by blurring the line between human and animal. It is this class of habits that greases the rails to our casual, but quite apparent, cultural slide into Dionysian decadence, animality and, finally, violence.”

Despite such ridiculously Spenglerian outbursts, Himmelfarb was considered a serious moral philosopher, which is why he had been invited to New Salem to give the annual Hilario-Campos Lecture on Justice. Himmelfarb’s talk was entitled, “The Infantilization of America.” He took the professor’s overture as an opportunity to warm up for the lecture. Outrage in the form of foamy-white spittle began to spray from his bloodless lips. “You understand what’s going on here, of course? This isn’t a mere physical preference or fashion statement. It’s yet another manifestation of the deliberate shunning of adulthood and moral responsibility that our decadent culture encourages. Look at them!” He thrust a jaundiced claw at the androgynous flock traipsing past them in a swirl of bare skin and pastels. “These are America’s elite students, and yet they are as thoughtless and happy as Wells’s Eloi. What little mental energy they muster is devoted solely to gratifying their animal desires. It’s all the usual suspects, naturally: promiscuous sex, alcohol and drugs, video games, this new social media, and every other variety of intellectually barren entertainment. Fluffernutter for the mind. Worse, even. Intellectual narcotics, producing a generation of Lotus-Eaters. But these things are just symptoms of the larger spiritual disease.” He looked the professor expectantly, dark eyes ablaze.

“Nihilism?” The professor hazarded. It was the safe play.

“The Quest for Fun,” Himmelfarb sniffed. “You have as much fun as you can pack into your given span . . . ,” he swept his arms at the students. “And then you die. This has actually become the working philosophy of our country. It’s little wonder we’re doomed.”

The professor held no brief for the old coot and his right-wing politics. It had not been his idea to invite him to campus. But as chair of the Philosophy Department, the professor was stuck playing host. Listening to Himmelfarb thunder on about the decline of Western civilization at the post-lecture dinner was tedious in extremis. Nevertheless, the professor had to admit that he was sad that someone like Himmelfarb (who had passed away a few years ago) would never be asked to come to campus now. Himmelfarb’s cultural diagnosis, you see, had been falsified: it was the Quest For Fun that had gone into decline. Apparently, this new generation of students agreed with Himmelfarb that vulgar hedonism was spiritually empty. They had replaced it with an ever more tempting vice: Righteous Outrage. If today’s campus caught a whiff that someone of Himmelfarb’s ilk was coming to speak, it would erupt in ecstatic protest. Denunciations and demands would be made with furious indignation. Atonement would not merely include the rescinding of the invitation, but also administrative apologies and resignations, and possibly the sackings of even tenured faculty who may haplessly have been involved. Hence, speakers and messages that went against the current grain were no longer heard at New Salem.

The professor continued his lone walk to his office, which took him past the enormous, gleaming glass and steel structure that housed the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It was the newest building on campus, with office windows featuring various DEI slogans: “White Silence is Violence,” “Black Lives Matter,” Stop Asian Hate,” “Por La Raza Todo,” “This is Indian Country,” “All Are Welcome Here,” “Stop White Supremacy,” “Try Listening, White People,” etc. There were rumors that someone had foolishly put up an “Asian Lives Matter” sign. The faux pas, it was said, had almost caused an office scuffle among the DEI coordinators.

Regardless of whether the reports of internal dissension were true, the ODEI presented a robust united front to the rest of the world. Its bureaucracy moved with ruthless efficiency. One of the first things that had to go, of course, was the name of the New Salem athletic teams. The Minutemen simply wouldn’t do for a host of reasons: male, white, armed(!) with a musket, a European colonizer of Indigenous land, etc. The list was long and was read out to the Faculty Senate. Attempting to sincerely respond to the list, a poor, old, oblivious chemistry professor actually suggested that perhaps they could replace the Minuteman mascot with a representation of a strong Native American woman from one of tribes that had originally inhabited the area! He was promptly removed from the Senate.

Hundreds of new mascots were considered, and several outside DEI consulting firms were hired at considerable expense to assist with the search. One of the early favorites was the Mastodon because the university was located near a bog where paleontologists had recovered Mastodon skeletons. But someone pointed out that there was evidence that the animals had been hunted into extinction by stone-aged Americans (who were also the ancestors of today’s Indigenous people, so a bad look all around). Someone else added that, besides, Mastodons probably couldn’t be alive today anyway because of climate change, so choosing it as the mascot could be construed as climate change denial. Indeed, given all the unspeakable ways that human beings have treated animals and destroyed their environment, the Senate determined that appropriating an animal for the mascot would be deeply speciesist.

The debate went round and round but all the candidates seemed to have some sort of historical taint. Or else they were too violent or aggressive. The young political scientist, the same one who had protested the New Core (miraculously still around), pointed out that aggression was inherent in lots of sports, so it made obvious sense to have an aggressive mascot and team name. “You wouldn’t want our football team to have Snuggles the Teddy Bear on their helmets, would you?” His point was ignored, but one of the Senators – a volatile Janeite from the English Department who made her own clothes and was known to burst into tears of rage or guilt during Senate deliberations – suggested that maybe the Teddy Bear was a good idea. What could be less offensive? But then an historian reminded the assembly that the Teddy Bear was named for the racist, imperialist, American President Theodore Roosevelt. Plus, as a consumer good, it was also implicated in the capitalist system. So that was dropped.

After many months of meetings, the Senate finally settled on the “New Salem Balloofs.” The Balloof was a sort of pink-gray cloud with sparkles in it. It had no meaning, and that was the point: there could be no hurtful or offensive associations with it (if the professor recalled correctly, the Balloof was conjured up by one of the pricey DEI consulting firms, which made sense). And yet the whole process ended up being for naught because New Salem eliminated all competitive sports over the next couple of years. Men’s sports were cancelled on account of their association with toxic masculinity. And capitalism. Perversely, Title IX then required women’s sports to be cancelled as well. The administration, in coordination with other schools in the same predicament, was lobbying Congress to change Title IX to allow schools to just have women’s sports, but hadn’t met with success yet. The Humean suggested that the whole effort was stalled by the colleges anyhow because they weren’t sure how to deal with the transgender issue.

The ODEI moved quickly from the mascot and the school motto – changed from Ex Sapientia Modus et Libertas to Safety, Diversity, and Social Justice – to the heart of the university: academics. It started issuing what was called “guidance,” but which was quickly understood to be mandates. Its guidance to “decolonize” course syllabi required massive changes to the content that was taught at the university. The mandates started by requiring all syllabi to contain materials written or created by BIPOC or LGBTQ or non-male-gendered authors. When asked for clarification, the ODEI specified that 50% of the materials taught should have non-CHeWMP authors. The next academic year, that was bumped to 80%. The Classics Department protested that most of what they taught was, by definition, written by ancient Greek and Roman men. The department was promptly disbanded, and most of its faculty fired (the sole female professor who focused on gender in the ancient world was appointed to the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Department). The official reason given by the administration was that the department lacked majors. This was true, so it defused accusations that ODEI was behind it. But the Classics Department was merely the first casualty on the path to the New Core and then to the abolition of classes.

The professor next had to pass the second largest building on campus. It housed the Office of Academic Assessment. Staffed by hordes wielding advanced degrees in education, it had also insinuated itself into all academics at the university. Although the assessment personnel were supposed to be experts in education, the professor had always found them curiously abysmal communicators. Part of the problem was that they used an impenetrable jargon that seemed to change on an almost weekly basis as new ideas about education were generated. Just when the professor thought he’d twigged the current set of “high impact practices” such as “scaffolding,” “flipped classrooms,” and “untethered lectures,” he was suddenly being told that he needed to shift to “inclusive listening modes,” “stress-reducing feedback mechanisms,” and “nonjudgmental grading practices.” Faculty weren’t explicitly commanded to utilize the latest educational techniques promulgated by the Assessment Office. No, the OAA would inform the faculty how to teach their classes by issuing changing “assessment rubrics” that needed to be satisfactorily filled out. These confirmed that the correct pedagogical methods were being employed. If there was one thing the OAA excelled at, it was constructing rubrics. These had to be returned to the OAA for every class, along with reports detailing how the instructor followed the OAA’s prescriptions. One had to conform or risk getting negative assessment reports about one’s teaching. These would end up in a personnel file, definitely something to be avoided given the precarious academic job market.

When the university president announced at the Faculty Senate last year that NSU would no longer have classes, the Humean asked what would happen to the “assessment industrial complex?” What would be left for it to assess? The professor quickly realized that the question wasn’t asked out of concern for fate of the OAA hordes but rather out of fear that they’d be turned loose to apply their assessment process to other aspects of life at the university. As the Humean later put it, “If that lot had their way, we’ll be filling out rubrics on the shits we take!”

“They would have to be high impact shits, of course,” the professor had responded.

The Humean lit up. “Yes, and untethered shits, flipped shits, scaffolded shits, discussion-based shits, what else?”

“Asynchronous shits, but I’m not sure that would work.”

“Ha! We should gin up an OAA sex rubric, make it all official-looking, and send it around to faculty mailboxes.” A dreamy expression came over the Humean’s face. “Just imagine the meltdown that that would cause . . . . After all the protests and furious condemnations had subsided, there would be nothing left of this place but an academic sinkhole . . . .”

To the Humean’s inquiry about the OAA in the Senate, the president had replied that while there would be no formal classes in the traditional sense, the university would still hold copious workshops and group sessions and such. Indeed, these activities would become the essence of education at the university and be slotted into the New Core to replace the classes. And these would still require assessment; many new rubrics would be needed. Thus, she predicted that it would be business as usual for the Assessment Office.

The professor had to pass one last set of buildings before he got to his office in the old Nock Hall. This set completed the bureaucratic triumvirate: it comprised the Office of Human Resources. Four, large, identical buildings connected by elevated walkways. The professor had recently been called into a meeting in one of them – looking at them now he couldn’t tell which – to discuss his future at the university. When he got the email from Ms. Sandy Whitaker, Vice President of Human Resources, he figured he was a goner. But the Humean said his impression was that they’d be careful not to defenestrate too many profs, especially tenured ones, and open themselves up to some sort of legal liability. So what would the meeting be about?

The professor had arrived at the HR building complex a few minutes before his appointment. As he made his way through the labyrinth of offices something struck him that he probably wouldn’t have noticed a few years earlier: just about everyone in HR, the dozens of workers that he saw buzzing about, seemed to be white women. They appeared to be very busy; the office was a beehive of feminine bustle and chatter. Feeling like an intruder, the professor reminded himself that he had been summoned to the place. But he was loath to interrupt the workplace flow when he realized that he was lost. After wandering around for a while as unobtrusively as possible, he steeled his nerves and apologetically began asking women for directions. Finally, he arrived at Vice President Whitaker’s office. Her pale assistant asked him to take a seat in the waiting area. He spaced out staring at the Georgia O’Keefe lily print on the wall. After about 20 minutes, a sullen looking Professor of Engineering emerged from the vice president’s office. He walked past the professor without looking at him and disappeared into the labyrinth. (The professor later learned that the engineer had been assigned to the post of Assistant Coordinator in the Student Activities Office where he helped with the complicated scheduling of meetings and events for the hundreds of extracurricular clubs on campus. According to the Humean, who collected this sort of gossip, the engineer had left the HR meeting with the intention of hanging himself from the robotic arm in his lab, but then thankfully thought better of it.) The assistant stood and poked her head into the office, received instruction, and then turned to the professor. “Vice President Whitaker will see you now.” The comforting smile on her pale face made the professor wary.

Vice President Whitaker – auburn pageboy, cream silk blouse, “natural” make-up – looked up at the professor from across her desk. She produced a smile identical to the assistant’s and gestured to him to take a seat.

“Professor Donald Kay? From philosophy? Thanks for coming in!”

“Thanks for seeing me . . .?”

“So, as you know, we are transitioning according to the new strategic plan. Since you won’t be teaching classes anymore, we need to find you a new role at the university.”

“Ok.”

She scanned her computer screen. “Where to place you? We need more people in the Office of DEI, but unfortunately you’re not BI . . . .” She caught herself.

“Sexual?” The professor offered. “But is that really a qualification for the job?”

“No! Not ‘bisexual.’ I meant to say that we can’t use you in that position. But what about the Mental Health Center?”

The professor pondered this. “Well, I’m a philosopher, not a therapist. But the ancient thinkers did know quite a bit about human psychology, so I would be willing to give it a try. I mean, people have been turning to the writings of the Stoics and Epicureans to help them cope with the human condition for far longer than they’ve been going to modern psychotherapy! Yes, you know? I think a lot of our troubled students could really benefit from sitting down and discussing the wisdom of the classics, to help them put things in perspective. Like the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and such! This could be really good . . . .”

Vice President Whitaker was frowning. “Actually, I was thinking you could help out with the administrative load over there. As you say, you’re not a mental health professional, so we couldn’t hire you as a counsellor. You understand.”

The professor nodded in defeat. “Right. So what would I do?”

“Well, you’d help keep the office running. Just scheduling all the appointments is a full-time job. And supporting the counsellors by keeping track of the case files and things like that. What do you say?”

“Is there anything else?”

She frowned again and looked at her screen. “Well, there’s an assistant admin position in the veterinarian office.”

“Veterinarian office?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know we had one. I mean, we don’t have a vet school, right?”

She gave a little laugh. “No, no. The office is relatively new. You know? We’ve had such an increase of students coming to the university with certified emotional support animals that it just made sense to open a veterinarian office on campus. It’s really increased the convenience for the students and we want them to know that they are supported here.”

“Right.”

“So? The veterinarian office?

“I’m allergic to cats.”

“Oh. Shoot.”

“They have therapy cats or whatever, I presume?”

“Yes, cats, dogs, chinchillas. The latest trend seems to be Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs,” she smiled again. “They’re very cute.”

“So, I guess I’ll take Mental Health.”

“Splendid!”

And that was how the professor’s academic career ended. Next semester, he’d be filing paperwork and answering phones for Mental Health. He should have guessed that he’d end up in Mental Health. Campus spending on mental health had become like military spending for the political Right: you could always justify spending more.

But at least he still had a job. The Humean was right that they weren’t just firing everyone who didn’t fit into the new dispensation. But they did shed some. The culling had been carried out by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Presidential Roundtable (DEIPR). The roundtable was jointly staffed by ODEI and HR personnel, along with a few faculty members and presidential staff. The criteria DEIPR used to select those who would be let go were kept confidential, though it seemed that they were combing through people’s personnel files to find evidence of possible past indiscretions. The professor knew of at least a few colleagues who had been placed on the proscription list. In fact, one was a philosophy colleague who focused on the Philosophy of Risk, Jeremy Becker. Over two decades earlier, young Becker had written a provocative academic article suggesting that the optimal level of domestic violence was probably not zero because that would indicate a society devoid of romantic passion. The article, of course, didn’t praise or advocate violence. It merely suggested that the risk of it would always be attendant if one takes into account the physicality and the intensity of emotion inherent in romantic passion. He even highlighted some female novelists who indicate that the danger of violence presented by romantic interaction with men can be an inescapable part of the attraction, and went further to suggest that this risk is present in all cases of strong sexual attraction, hetero or non-hetero. DEIPR seized on this article and accused Becker of being misogynistic and a threat to the safety of the campus community. The professor had assured Becker that, given his stellar reputation as a philosopher, he would find another position. Nothing yet, though.

Another adjustment was the dismissal Benjamin Bloom, Lit. Prof. and critically acclaimed novelist, canned because DEIPR determined that his latest work of historical fiction, Stalin in Love, didn’t endow its female characters with adequate agency; they came across as mere victims. Bloom protested that that was the point: Stalin treated the women in his life horribly and robbed them of their agency and dignity – as one might expect of a paranoid bloodthirsty dictator – and Bloom was just being faithful to that. The DEIPRers were not interested in this defense. (The professor found it curious that 85 years ago, the primary criticism from the Left of such a novel would have been that it had treated Stalin too harshly.) In addition to its charge of sexism, DEIPR criticized the book for not having enough characters of color. It was thus an affront to social justice and, in light of this, female and BIPOC students would not feel welcome in Bloom’s classroom. Goodbye, Bloom.

Then there was Michael Morill from the Sociology Department. Dr. Morill had made the grave mistake of writing the word “Cute!!!” in the margin of student’s paper he was grading. He wrote this in response to the student’s attempt at a pun: “One is forced to conclude that Baudrillard’s analysis of the 9/11 attacks, while it purports to be radical, remains mired in a bourgeois masculinist perspective: Gallic postmodernism is once again phallic postmodernism.” The student complained to DEIPR that the comment was inappropriate. Morrill was investigated and found guilty of “gender-based impropriety.” Although he was initially placed on unpaid administrative leave, DEIPR, unhampered by considerations of due process or double jeopardy, revisited his case and decided that he could not be rehabilitated.

The professor arrived at his office. Unexpectedly, one of The Six was waiting for him in the corridor: Zack, a male junior (he/him/his), one of the non-laptopping students in the class. The scruffy young man in a flannel shirt and cargo shorts began with an awkward, “Hey, Kay.”

“Hi, Zack. What’s up?”

“Can I talk to you about class for a minute?”

“Of course.” The professor opened his office door and directed the student to the chair in front of his desk. “What can I do for you, Zack?”

The young man’s eyes wandered around the book-lined office. “Um. First, I just wanted you to know that I’m FGen.”

The professor furrowed his quizzical eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”

“FGen,” Zack repeated, meeting a blank look. “First Generation.”

“First Generation of what?”

“First Generation college student.” The professor still manifested a distinct lack of comprehension. Zack clarified, “On my mom’s side. She’s medical technician but she never got a four-year degree. My dad went to University of Chicago, but they divorced a few years ago . . . .”

“I’m sorry,” the professor said cautiously. “That must have been tough.”

“Yeah . . . . So, I live in my mom’s household, mostly. Which makes me FGen.”

“Ok . . . .”

“So, I was wondering if I could get an extension on the final paper?”

“You’re actually going to write one? Now that they’ve canceled grades?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Why?”

“So, um, my dad said he’d buy me a car if I raised my GPA. Which I can’t do now that we’re not getting grades anymore.” He looked at his hands in his lap, and then snapped his head up. “Which I’m all for, of course. Grades are meritocratic and everything . . . . But it’s, uh, a problem for the deal I made with my dad.”

“Ok. I still can’t enter a grade that will affect your GPA, though.”

“No, I know. But if I can show my dad that I would have raised my GPA by what I would have gotten in my classes this term, that will satisfy him.”

“So you’re having all your professors give you unofficial grades?”

“Well, just the ones that will help my GPA.”

“I see.”

“So, I just wanted to let you know that I will be handing in the paper, but I’ll need the extension.”

“Ok. That’s fine.”

“Thank you, Professor Kay!” He smiled and rose to leave. Then he turned and said, “By the way, I really liked your class.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” The professor took a breath as the young man went to leave. “Hey, Zack. What kind of car?”

“Uh. A Tesla.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah, well, you know, I wanted to get an EV. Because of climate change and everything.”

“Great. Well, good luck. I look forward to reading your paper.”

“Yeah, great. Ok, bye.”

After his last student left his office, the professor contemplated starting the task of packing it all up, all the books into boxes. It would have to be done. But he wasn’t ready. Feeling a bit claustrophobic, he decided he needed to walk more. It would be twilight soon and he loved strolling the campus in the gloaming. As he exited Nock Hall, an excited gaggle of students slid passed him. He caught a snippet of their conversation and recognized what it was about. They were all a twitter about the recent announcement that a young, BIPOC “slam poet” was going to be in-residence next semester. The professor thought to himself, Well, it’s good to see them interested in poetry! The humanities, he was relieved to see, really seemed to be making a comeback. A mere few years ago, it appeared that all of higher ed was going to invest in STEM education at the expense of the humanities. The reigning attitude seemed to be that, as Henry Ford allegedly insisted (and Mustafa Mond quoted), “History is bunk!” Majoring in History or English or Philosophy was a waste of time. But the latest cohort of students seemed to take to these subjects with a vengeance. Granted, they seemed to only want to focus on specific topics and didn’t want to hear about other things, but wasn’t that inevitable (regardless of what the Humean said about it)? The workshops and group sessions that the students would now attend aimed to afford them the education they sought. Indeed, the recent catchphrase from OAA was, “We need to meet the students where they’re at!” So maybe all this change was a good thing, was progress.

The professor contemplated this as he walked past the enormous glass structure of the campus gym that housed a multi-faced, five-story climbing wall infested with helmeted students gaily clinging to the brightly colored holds. As he continued by the noisy pickleball courts and around the corner of the new aquatic center (featuring the state’s longest lazy river), he encountered the university president. She and her entourage of eight or ten minions were heading to the parking lot.

President Shaveena Mach-Chavez was a hot commodity in higher ed admin. (Though the professor wasn’t sure one could still use the term “hot commodity” since “hot” was probably sexist and “commodity” capitalist.) New Salem had been lucky enough to lure her away from Brighton College, which had lured her away from the presidency of the University of La Jolla just three years earlier. She got her PhD in Educational Leadership and Administration from Yale, was it just a mere 16 years ago? She landed her first job after graduate school as Associate Vice Provost for Multicultural Outreach at Brown – very impressive! Since then, she had been president of no fewer than five institutions of higher education. The praise of her leadership was universal, and no one blamed her for the receivership of Brighton College; it had been struggling before she took the helm. It was quite a coup for New Salem to get someone with so much experience and vision.

There she was, like a starlet gliding along the red carpet. The professor halted his progress so as stay out of the way of the entourage. God, she was impressive. Coiffed blond hair, piercing blue eyes, proud, prominent nose above bursting, dark lips, and a tailored white suit that accentuated her light-brown skin. She referred to herself as racially LaBlAAPI, thanks to an African-American grandmother and an ancestor from the Philippines. According to the Humean, there was a rumor that she had taken an ancestry test as soon as they were made commercially available in the hope that she had Native American DNA. When the professor met this proposition with incredulity, the Humean replied, “Isn’t everybody doing that? It’s not long before we have social credit scores based on it.”

The professor watched as the group proceeded into the parking lot, perhaps going to dinner to discuss further innovations for the university. Strangely, he was overcome by a desperate urge to rush the group, plant elbows in the insipid faces of two of her companions, and leap upon President Shaveena Mach-Chavez, pummeling, pummeling . . . . He was so horrified at himself that he nearly vomited. The entourage disappeared into the cars. The professor, suddenly self-aware, was hyperventilating and attempted to calm himself down.

He took in his surroundings and relaxed. It really was an exquisite campus, a near perfect harmony of grand architecture and nature. A setting for the mental and physical flourishing of young people. Happy, diverse students populated the idyllic landscape, talking about their interests, playing their games, making their plans. The whole glorious world was just starting to turn orange and pink. The professor squinted at the divine, fading sunlight. It lit everything so beautifully that he wanted to weep. In that moment, he felt cosmically safe. Yes, everything was going to be all right.

---

Bill Curtis is a Professor of Political Science & Global Affairs and teaches political theory and constitutional law at the University of Portland in Portland, Oregon.