{"id":17030,"date":"2022-01-10T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T10:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=17030"},"modified":"2022-08-03T13:09:44","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T17:09:44","slug":"the-peak-of-his-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/the-peak-of-his-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Peak of His Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Dean accused me\u2014me!\u2014of sounding \u201caggrieved\u201d and suggested that I consider the reputation of the college. The college! What about my reputation? If I sound aggrieved, it\u2019s because I have some perfectly justifiable grievances. I don\u2019t mind airing them here, though I have no idea what Human Resources actually does. And who ever heard of a Human Resources Associate Compliance Officer? There certainly was no such thing when I was hired. What sort of euphemism is \u201chuman resources\u201d anyway? An alternative to animal resources? Yes, I object to your taping my remarks. You might try listening instead.<\/p>\n

First, I\u2019d like to know where the Dean is getting his information. Who these accusers are, and why they are allowed to remain anonymous. I have never favored certain students over others, or made suggestive remarks to young women. I don\u2019t particularly like any of my students, truth be told, the young women least of all. Nose rings, tattoos defacing their entire arms and legs, they seem bent on making themselves as unattractive as possible, and look more vapid every year.<\/p>\n

Second, I have never threatened uncooperative students with low grades. In my opinion standards have fallen lamentably. All of the current crop of students deserves low grades. I\u2019ve been tenured for over thirty years, as you well know, and have no need to curry favor with whiny students doing substandard work. I don\u2019t give a rat\u2019s ass about student evaluations any more, if you\u2019ll pardon my frankness. High student evaluations among our adjuncts and junior faculty are warning signs that invariably point to popularists who assign too little work and grade the results far too highly. The fact that one of my accusers calls me \u201cmenacing\u201d is laughable. What sort of danger could I possibly represent? And \u201cintellectually elitist\u201d? You should be thankful that someone in the department is. I take notice of the handful of students who show glimmers of intelligence. And I mean glimmers.<\/p>\n

I should add that I most assuredly did not \u201cthunder\u201d in the classroom, though if I knew how to conjure thunder and lightning in the course of a lecture on eighteenth-century prose, I would certainly do so. If a student feels I raised my voice, then perhaps she should have raised hers as well (I feel certain this accuser is female). I\u2019ve had enough of timid mice who squeak in the back row, and become teary-eyed during my office hours because they\u2019re failing my class. Do you know how many students miss half the semester and then drop by my office hours in the belief that some magical \u201cextra credit\u201d assignment exists to restore their standing? Or that a breakup with their boyfriend qualifies them for an Incomplete? Since when does someone\u2019s private life excuse them from fulfilling their professional obligations? In the work world that wouldn\u2019t be tolerated.<\/p>\n

Certainly I could retire, but I consider myself at the peak of my powers, and you might consider the reputation of a faculty comprised entirely of adjuncts and junior professors who do little more than pander to the dullest and least prepared of our students. Have you seen any of their recent scholarship, by the way? Literature seems to have gone by the wayside while they interpret the cultural significance of Twitter or recent trends in slasher films. Expel my accusers if you will, take a good long look at our recent hires, but you certainly will not expel me. I have no need to defend myself against scurrilous charges made by cretins. And no, I\u2019m not the least bit interested in taking one of your sensitivity training workshops, which sound utterly ridiculous. Even worse than marriage counseling, which I also declined to engage in. If my stubborn wife wants a divorce, let her have it. I hope she doesn\u2019t think she\u2019ll find another husband of my caliber at her age. If you\u2019ll excuse me, I have a class to teach.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, I object to your taping my remarks. You might try listening instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-jacqueline-doyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17030"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17095,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17030\/revisions\/17095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}