{"id":281,"date":"2009-01-03T19:33:16","date_gmt":"2009-01-04T00:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/?p=281"},"modified":"2009-01-03T19:33:16","modified_gmt":"2009-01-04T00:33:16","slug":"academic-despotism-praised-in-iambic-tetrameter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/2009\/01\/03\/academic-despotism-praised-in-iambic-tetrameter\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic despotism, praised in iambic tetrameter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Department Head<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His kingdom isn&#8217;t large, but still<br \/>\nHe rules it with a royal will<br \/>\nAnd, as his colleagues sometimes moan,<br \/>\nNeeds but a scepter and a throne.<br \/>\nPart teacher only, he&#8217;s between<br \/>\nA full professor and a dean.<br \/>\nMore like a congressman, by rights,<br \/>\nHe represents his field and fights<br \/>\nFor added space and extra books,<br \/>\nMore office space and shelves and hooks.<br \/>\nHe counts his majors, keenly knowing<br \/>\nHe has to make a stronger showing<br \/>\nOr (how his loyal heart is torn)<br \/>\nHis budget will be sadly shorn.<br \/>\nAbove his colleagues quite a distance,<br \/>\nHe has a phone and two assistants<br \/>\nAnd teaches what he wants and when<br \/>\nAnd takes a day off now and then.<br \/>\nThe students all are scared to death,<br \/>\nThe new instructor holds his breath,<br \/>\nThe others envy, hate, admire,<br \/>\nAnd try to guess when he&#8217;ll retire.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>-Richard Armour, 1956, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/495691\">College English 17(8):450<\/a>. (There are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/378978\">other examples of this doggerel<\/a> out there too.)<\/p>\n<p>Let me just note that it&#8217;s interesting that the three themes of this poem are: the structure of departmental power (somewhere between monarchy and legislative bargaining); the budget and material supplies (down to the shelves and hooks); and the chair&#8217;s affective relations with colleagues and students (envy, fear, suspense, admiration&#8230;).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Department Head &#8220;His kingdom isn&#8217;t large, but still He rules it with a royal will And, as his colleagues sometimes moan, Needs but a scepter and a throne. Part teacher only, he&#8217;s between A full professor and a dean. More like a congressman, by rights, He represents his field and fights For added space and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[502,485],"tags":[520,560,650],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}