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[acrimone]

As the OP, I'd like to set a few ground rules for this, which I consecrate as the Hall of Fame for the Chronicle Forums.

1) You may not post your own posts here.  You can only quote someone else's.  There is not, however, a limit on the number of posts you may submit.

2) Please use the quote function (it's like an HTML tag that just has brackets instead of greater than/less than, and uses the words "quote" and "/quote") and clearly identify the person quoting.

3) No commentary on the posts, please.  This thread is hereby established solely to contain those posts which someone sees as truly exceptional, in a good way.  It may be because they are insightful, funny, sagacious... the criteria are entirely subjective.

4) Do try to be discriminating.

[randygeezer]

I don't know - I still want to hear more about Cowen's salary.  And if you know what his sacrifice has been, perhaps we can then try to appreciate what he has had to give up.  What I mean is, if his salary has gone from, say, $250,000 to $200,000, what can he no longer enjoy because he doesn't have that extra $50,000 (okay, $30,000 after taxes)?  Does this mean he's drinking Jamesons when he used to be on Laphroaig?  Has he had to downgrade from a Lexus to a Buick? 

I've read some of the Katrina stories on their web site - damn, that man sounds heroic!  Check this one out:

http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=6174

Here's the line I like best:  "Between food-thievery, vehicle hot-wiring and gas-siphoning, Cowen jokes that he has learned a new set of skills." 

That's so inspiring, I ... feel like ... I almost want ... to write them a check...

... but then it occurs to me that this type of catastrophe had long been predicted.  Which means that Tulane's recovery plan was almost certainly written before Katrina.  Which means that it almost certainly contained elements that weren't strictly necessary for recovery but which were instead seen as desirable changes, to be accomplished when an opportunity presented itself. 

And if you don't think university presidents and the like think in these terms, then that just means you wouldn't make a very good administrator.

[nabob]

I write on behalf of my colleagues, my brothers and sisters in arms, we who have just labored among you all for the ever elusive tenure track jobs and fallen short of our mark.  I write on behalf of the passed over, the un-interviewed, the troglodites who now steel themselves for another year of adjunct/visiting/pos-doc limbo, purging off our "sins" of youth, low publication, "over-qualification" and inexperience.  I write on behalf of us all who gather now in un-advertized "I didn't get a job either" parties all across Academe.

Here, here good fellows of the academy is our manifesto, our declaration, and our curse.

We are collegial.  We "fit."  We gather, even now, in small, book strewn hovels and we sing songs of liberty with voices that drip with comradery.  We share in one another's joy and pain.  We raise our glasses in collegial toasts of Yellow Tail wines.  We sing our anthems about friends in low places.  We are funny. Our repartee is both sparkling and witty.  (You caught us on a bad day; we were nervous, afraid to use swear words, wearing tight pinchy shoes, and with bad haircuts we had, for many and complex reasons, just managed to secure at SuperCuts scant days before our arrival).  We are truly social swans, not the ugly ducklings you have dismissed.  Your women would swoon; your men would lust.  Your partners would have been awash in our glory (we are virtuous, do not fear) and showered upon you later the fruits such beauty engenders.

We are brilliant, good madams and sirs.  We are simply brilliant.  We would have continued our publication rates.  Discipline-shaping essays role out of us like water from sacred springs.  You SLACs and small programs ancillary to greatness but not yet in its presence – we would have made you proud.  You R1s, R1.5s and other proud centers of all things arcane – we would have kept up.  We would have done wonders.  And know, you under-achieving marvels now at or near tenure, we would have shared; we would have collaborated.  Really.  Honest.  No foolin.

You have passed us by, Oh SCCs and DCs of the world.  Yet mark down this day, mark down this moment.  Someday, within the next four years, you will be pawing through the top drawer of your desk in search of aspirin even as you hear the clueless, dullard footfalls of S/he-who-holds-our-rightful-job lumber away down the hallway.  You will rue, Oh SCC/DCs, one day you will rue.  Even as you chew tylenol and wash it down with coffee.

And to our colleagues who have been successful: we offer congratulatory warnings.  Like newly hatched sea turtles, you have grotesquely flipped and flapped your way over and past us and into the surf, proving once again the successful formula of sufficient incubatory opportunity plus genetically produced competitive adequacy, both multiplied by good fortune.  Yet now, dear former friends, you have passed over.  No longer are you welcome to lodge with us at conferences in rooms stacked six deep and filled with the smell of cheap bourbon and dirty laundry (from which, you can no longer borrow shoes, ties, and hose or skirts) and charged with the energy of furtive glances cast at opposite sex contemporaries in their pjs.  No longer can you sit with us until 3:00 am smoking hash or drinking Jack Daniels while comparing Batman to Beowulf.  No longer will we tell you the gossip about Great-Scholar-So-and-So and whom s/he is sleeping with this semester.  No, "friends," no.  Now your lives will be filled with course evaluations that actually matter, with painfully meticulous records of your developing "teaching philosophy," and with seminars on pedagogy sandwiched around dull, afternoon long faculty meetings, receptions with donor-trustees, and endless hours photocopying evaluations, syllabi, papers, and conference schedules.  Congratulations, you are now shackled with the fetters of the bourgeois Committee(s) On Faculty Development.  Your bohemian days of glory are over. 

And so, we curse you all.  May your blackboards ever be filled with the notes from the previous class.  May your pencils vanish and your coffee be cold and bland.  Enjoy your bleary days in Omaha, Utah, and Georgia while we wile away our Summers in New York, Miami, L.A., Chicago, Toronto and London living out the last dregs of our student loan surplus.  May your evaluations contain remarks like: "well, good class, but boring" or   "Decent prof., but way too old to still dress like that."  May your departments suddenly initiate online courses.  May your deans know you by first name and have a deep admiration for your administrative skills.  May your offices be cold, your department chairs flatulent when you can't laugh, your students needy and entitled, and your reference librarians grossly incompetent in your specialty. 

Curses and good night to you all from the classes of 2004/5/6.  Rest well in your glory; tonight belongs to you.  Dream of negotiated relocation expenses and semester leaves.  Yes, the battle is over for now, but only for the moment.  Know this, good friends, know this: we have not gone away; Carvelle-esquely, we will return with vigor and no more humane pity.  Look at our eyes; we are hard and sure.  We will return, again, yet it will not be the soft, easily frightened, non-networking "we"s you have just bested.  We will be clothed in the god-like radiance of the books we shall publish over the Summer months (2 at least; while you rest and pack boxes).  We will have honed our interviewing skills and purchased new clothes that make our butts look amazing.  We will be lean, hard, and glorious.  Tonight, we are drinking whole grain alcohol;  but we are plotting, even so, showing "lean and hungry" looks.  We will weep.  We will get drunk.  We will renew our prescriptions for Ativan.  We will count our fingers and toes, and then we will sharpen our knives.

And in six short months, we will back in the hunt.

[supernumerary]

I am neither normal nor nice.

[prytania3]

Die fluffy kitten, Die!
                 Larryc

[supernumerary]

Part of the problem here is not that this student is just a "talker", but that he doesn't stay on topic, even remotely, right?  I had one of those, who took several classes from me.  <snip>

Me: What does this tell us about pheonomenon X?

Student: Blue, rhinorceros, triangle.

Me:  Well, that's interesting, but it's not really on topic.  Anyone else? What does this tell us about pheonomenon X?

[dr_evil]

im in ur thread correcting ur grammar

[anthroid]

If the Bible specifies that "sodomy" is sinful, does that then mean that Christians don't have any problem with lesbians?

The Bible says that lesbians are TOTALLY HOT!


[The above is my 1000th post, and I could not be happier about its contents.]

[supernumerary]

Mr. Francie (the Howard Hughes of the Forum) would like to break away briefly from his grading (and browbeating his graduate students) to send his personal congratulations on Francie's 1000th post.

Now, sweetie, do I have any clean underwear?  And where are the kids?  I haven't seen them lately.

[basilratbane]

This thread seems to be mostly a meeting of LarryC's groupies.

When does the orgy begin?

[flyguy]

I have received 15 thank you letters from President Clinton regarding issues like going off Launch on Warning (LOW) so as not to have a false attack on another nation, looking for asteroids more carefully as there is always a strike risk, making adoption more attractive to limit abortion or locating the Presidential  library away from flood areas.
I received thank you letters from NASA regarding issues like putting a belly shield or rocket shield on the bottom of the shuttle or over rocket, doing spectroscopy on reentry, looking for asteroids, cooperating with the Russians on the station, reusing old missions,testing space dust above atmosphere, keeping station design simple.
Express concern to the Cancer Institute that School A played a role in cell phone and needs to be aware of cell phone cancer studies in their grants, and that probably plays a role in their retaliation.
Thank you letters from other places like USDA about planting trees, National Zoo about investing in web site and concerns with euthanasia policy, USDA about handwashing after visiting petting zoos or Department of Energy about grants to use SSC to look for neutrinos.

[atalanta]

From thread "Dealing with student e-mails"

I am able to address this in the vein of teaching them how they will in turn communicate with others in the profession for which they are preparing. I explain the 'sandwich' convention of greeting, body, and conclusion.

I point out the higher level of thinking required to summarize the point in a subject line that is an informative reference. I give a template that looks like this:

1. The problem: whatever requires a decision (should be in the subject line)

2. The background: whatever connects it to some founding document we have in common, i.e., the course syllabus. (course number should be in subject line, too). Without this I don't give it a high priority because you are making me figure out the context.

3. The options: crucial, and without which I will return it for more information. The student must have done some homework on what is possible, and comment on each one as a possibility.

4. The request: specifically, more information, some interpretation of information, a meeting, a letter,.... something concrete. If it is a complaint or request, what specific action is expected...

5. The deadline... and by when is it needed. If a meeting is requested, give at least two times plus a cell phone and email for confirming the meeting.

6. The relationship: somewhere in this whole missive, it should be clear that I am the professor and you are the student and the reason this conversation is going on is because of it, and that simple courtesy includes acknowledging any personal attention.

This is actually on a document on my desktop that I can easily open, copy, and paste.  The result is first of all that I am not frustrated by the emails, but most importantly, by the time the student has assembled all this information, the problem has often sorted itself out and a logical next step has emerged. I encourage them to share that with me, but make it clear that it is an FYI to let me know they were able to use the template to sort things out.

This also has the effect of establishing how seriously I regarding their requests. 

BTW, for issues such as being absent or late, there is an even more rigorous template.

Subject line = [last name] + [Course} + [time/date] + [Absent/10 min. late]

Message =
1. Apology
2. Explanation
3. Proposed compensatory action
4. Target date to complete action
5. Courtesy

[grasshopper]

There's a Very Good Reason why Larry C gets quoted. We know how volatile he can be when offended.

I stormed out of an inverview once because someone said "very unique." Unique is an absolute and should never be modified with a qualifier.  I turned over the conference table and punched the secretary on the way out.  I have my standards.

And the reply, which I love and want to marry:

Was she massaging herself at the time?

[anthroid]

From KissyFace College:

Rooster, Rooster
-- An Elegy for Extra Crispy, Written through my Tears

Rooster, rooster, burning bright
Singed by klieg lights in the night
How can it be that thou shouldst die
Killed by thy chow-chow enemy?

On this attack, what sad surprise
Showed in thy plucky rooster eyes?
Thy crispy wings, all singed with fire --
Did they beat to and fro with ire?

And oh! it breaks my very heart
He scarfed down every body part
From blackened breast to Cajun feet
Wert thou a finger-lickin' treat?

And in thy extra-crispy brain,
Didst thou suspect thou fought in vain?
Thy prize tiara fell, unclasp'd,
To pouty traitors' loathsome grasp!

Though to thy roasted flesh adheres
No condiment but salty tears,
We'll fry thee up in effigy,
And mourn thy death as we eat thee.

Rooster, rooster, burning bright
Singed by klieg lights in the night
How can it be that thou shouldst die
Killed by thy chow-chow enemy?


(sob! Oh, Extra Crispy, we hardly knew ye.)

VP
KFC Poet L'Orealate

[petronus]

We have discussed this lots of times, try out the search function to find the threads.

Great idea, Larry, as always.  And I would like to lovingly remind you that punctuation is as important as capitalization.  Remember the comma splice!