Some years ago, I conceived a business idea which I hereby make available free and for nothing to any enterprising soul who wishes to do a bit of good for the community. You know how there are services that store “cord blood” of newborns which, being rich in stem cells, could be used later in life to treat various diseases? My idea is somewhat similar. Here’s how it would work. Whenever an aspiring academic bureaucrat is appointed to the presidency of a college or university, this service would undertake, for a small recurring fee, to receive and safely store his testicles in a secure undisclosed location for the duration of his tenure. Upon proper certification indicating that an individual was no longer overseeing an educational institution, the testicles would be returned, intact, and fully functional. Studies have shown that disuse is injurious to this delicate organ, and since vanishingly few college presidents acknowledge their possession of what the vernacular denominates cojones, this innovative prophylactic approach to healthy living would benefit not only many individuals but also, by reducing the number of future claims on scarce resources, the larger health care network. Other obligations make it impossible for me to pursue this obvious money-maker, but I look forward to seeing it instituted very soon. If a pilot project is deemed advisable, I venture to suggest that a good start might be Yale University, whose ambulatory blancmange, Peter Salovey, is the proud winner of the 2015 Sheldon Award for Worst College President. Boola-boola.
Thus endeth my entrepreneurial spiel. But I am not quite done with awards. For Marvin Krislov, the president of Oberlin College (tuition, room, and board this year: $64,266), deserves a real award for providing a partial counter-example in extremis to my general proposition concerning the eunuch-like nature of the Confraternity of College and University Presidents. The example is only partial because Oberlin , under his watch, has distinguished itself as a poster-child for the weaponized PC-madness that has gripped college campuses with the ferocity of a medieval plague. Back in December, there was a flurry of well-deserved ridicule directed at Oberlin for the 14-page list of “demands” issued by members of the Black Student Union. The document is similar to, but possibly even more insane than, the lists propagated by black students at Yale, Amherst, the University of Missouri, Princeton, and other institutions. The gastronomic elements of the protests — the demand, for example, that fried chicken be made a permanent part of the dining hall menu — elicited the greatest hilarity. But the document was minatory as well as mad. Here’s a bit from the opening: