Academic Gilead

Yesterday, I arrived at the Dean's office a few minutes early for a meeting so I ducked into an empty cubicle to inhale some lunch. I found the pictured stack of books on the cubicle's desk.

(click for a larger version)

For those photographically-challenged amongst you, the titles of the books I found were:

Chairing the Academic Department
The Academic Chairperson's Handbook
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

What the hell kind of College are they running, anyway!?

Coincidently, one of the topics at the meeting I was going to concerned training new academic department chairs. I mentioned the pile of research I had spied in the cubicle, which drew a big laugh. I then suggested that perhaps basing our mission on, say, Brave New World instead would be more effective. The room was in stitches. I owned that audience.

Later, I recalled that the drug from Brave new World was called "soma," which was also the last name of our former Acting Dean. If only that had occurred to me at the meeting I could have scored a legendary comedic triple play. Oh well.