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En Garde, whole no. 17, April 1946
Page 30
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page 30. piece of faculty chicanry went on during those fifteen years that I didn't hear, or overhear all about from most of the parties concerned, I'll be bitterly disappointed to learn about it now. The earful I got as it was sufficed not only to give me an attitude towards the whole mess which went far towards nullifying any slight good I might otherwise have gotten from my college course, but has left me permanently soured on the whole subject. Of course, Blank is definitely a second rate school. Subnormal salaries and budgets through the years have resulted in the accumulation of a larger percentage of faculty incompetants than would be the case at an institution such as Stanford. On the other hand, I have discussed the matter with enough former students of other institutions to convince me that Blank differs from other colleges and universities only in degree---not in kind. Fandom is often criticised as being a microcosmos, too narrow and engrossing, and too much out of touch with mundane life and activity. The poseurs, the seekers of ego gratification, the non-entities who seek a small puddle for their royal frogships, the feudists, even the handful of sexual perverts---all these may be found on a university faculty, and in about the same proportions that they are to be found in fandom. And if the barriers that make fandom a microcosmos can be likened to an amnion, then the similar barriers surrounding a faculty can be compared to nothing thinner or softer than the armor on a battleship. It is not at all unusual for university department heads to indulge in such violent feuds with each other that they become---literally---not on speaking terms. The handful of competent men seldom trouble to hide their scorn for the poseurs and the nonentities, and vice versa. The ill feelings are fanned by the constant proselyting activities conducted by faculty members during registration time. (Since departmental budgets are largely governed by enrollment, each additional student means money in the department. I have known of a number of cases where naive students have had their college careers ruined through ill-advised enrollments into which they were high-pressured by supposedly honorable PhD's.) I seriously question if the percentage of genuinely maladjusted fans is any higher (if, indeed, as high) than that among the Blank faculty at the time I was familiar with it. And I definitely have met no fan who was as near the ragged edge as were two or three of these individuals. I recall an elderly woman (who taught language or history or something else in Letters & Sciences) whose insanity was a common subject of conversation among her fellow faculty members, but who is well ensconced under so-called academic tenure (a cunning device which requires an act of the state legislature to discharge a full professor). And there was the supposedly male head of another department who "went steady" with the really beautiful girl who was an instructor under "him". Lesbian love is not confined to Hollywood. Another interesting specimen was the bellowing,
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page 30. piece of faculty chicanry went on during those fifteen years that I didn't hear, or overhear all about from most of the parties concerned, I'll be bitterly disappointed to learn about it now. The earful I got as it was sufficed not only to give me an attitude towards the whole mess which went far towards nullifying any slight good I might otherwise have gotten from my college course, but has left me permanently soured on the whole subject. Of course, Blank is definitely a second rate school. Subnormal salaries and budgets through the years have resulted in the accumulation of a larger percentage of faculty incompetants than would be the case at an institution such as Stanford. On the other hand, I have discussed the matter with enough former students of other institutions to convince me that Blank differs from other colleges and universities only in degree---not in kind. Fandom is often criticised as being a microcosmos, too narrow and engrossing, and too much out of touch with mundane life and activity. The poseurs, the seekers of ego gratification, the non-entities who seek a small puddle for their royal frogships, the feudists, even the handful of sexual perverts---all these may be found on a university faculty, and in about the same proportions that they are to be found in fandom. And if the barriers that make fandom a microcosmos can be likened to an amnion, then the similar barriers surrounding a faculty can be compared to nothing thinner or softer than the armor on a battleship. It is not at all unusual for university department heads to indulge in such violent feuds with each other that they become---literally---not on speaking terms. The handful of competent men seldom trouble to hide their scorn for the poseurs and the nonentities, and vice versa. The ill feelings are fanned by the constant proselyting activities conducted by faculty members during registration time. (Since departmental budgets are largely governed by enrollment, each additional student means money in the department. I have known of a number of cases where naive students have had their college careers ruined through ill-advised enrollments into which they were high-pressured by supposedly honorable PhD's.) I seriously question if the percentage of genuinely maladjusted fans is any higher (if, indeed, as high) than that among the Blank faculty at the time I was familiar with it. And I definitely have met no fan who was as near the ragged edge as were two or three of these individuals. I recall an elderly woman (who taught language or history or something else in Letters & Sciences) whose insanity was a common subject of conversation among her fellow faculty members, but who is well ensconced under so-called academic tenure (a cunning device which requires an act of the state legislature to discharge a full professor). And there was the supposedly male head of another department who "went steady" with the really beautiful girl who was an instructor under "him". Lesbian love is not confined to Hollywood. Another interesting specimen was the bellowing,
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