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UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

College Saint-Aubin des Soirees




Everyone’s talking about SUNY Albany, a perennial top-tenner among the nation’s party schools, and, this year, Number One. Number One not only in “partying,” but also in the category “students (almost) never study.”

This sort of truth, so baldly stated, hurts a university. SUNY’s angry administration has fired off a letter to students, parents, and alumni denying the whole thing, but UD has no doubt it‘s true. UD is sure that serious intellectual activity takes place at the margins of SUNY Albany; smack in the middle, though, people are fucking off.

The SUNY administrators’ total denial, therefore, is the wrong response. No one believes them. Here are some better options:



1. Go with it brazenly. “Yes, we are a party school. Judging by our graduation rates and job placements, our students still do very well in the world, but we can’t deny that they’re drugging and drinking while they’re here.”

2. Keep going; you’re on a roll. “This combination of hardy partying and worldly success is rather impressive in itself, isn’t it? Our students are the sort of people who can hold their liquor; they are the sort of people who can stay up all night dancing and pass tests the next morning. This shows stamina and a kind of genius.”

3. Go yet further. “And since when is joie de vivre a crime? Is it our fault that our students have a capacity for happiness?”


SUNY could go another way. It could say:


4. “Yes, it’s true, and it’s horrible and humiliating. Our university has evolved over the years from a pretty serious place to a travesty, a sham, a sodden joke. In consultation with our board of trustees, we have therefore determined, starting next year, to impose the Rule of Saint Benedict on every member of the SUNY Albany community. The daily university schedule throughout the academic year follows:


FALL AND SPRING:


2:30 AM: Preparation for night office; oratorio and gradual psalms.

3:00 AM: Nocturns, including prayers for the dead.

5:00 AM: Silent reading.

6:00 AM: Matins (Lauds) at daybreak.

7:30 AM: Silent reading.

8:00 AM: Wash and change. Morrow mass.

9:45 AM: Work.

12:00 PM: Sung Mass (Sext).

2:45 PM: Work.

4:15 PM: Vespers.

5:30 PM: Change into night shoes.

6:00 PM: Collatio. [Note: This means “light meal.” Do not confuse this, or any other term (“sext”) on this schedule with words that may sound similar.]

6:15: Compline.

6:30: Bed.