Comment of the Day: Community College Sucks, Too
Today we brought you the haughty email of an Ivy League professor who was looking down on her former colleagues and students at a lesser university. Now imagine if she sent the same note to her community college cohorts.
That's what commenter Keverdene did in a very clever parody:
Dear Students At the Community College Where I Used to Teach,
I now make a lot more money and have a fancy office at a REAL college. My students come from more privileged families and can avail themselves of the vastly superior facilities on campus, so they are much easier to talk to than you ever were. Because they're so much more like ME! I even disappoint them sometimes by failing them, but they understand, because failure doesn't present them with a bleak future... they can continue to live off their parents until they get their asses in gear.
The area where I now live is also a lovely improvement on the backwoods swamp I once occupied while trying to cram highbrow thoughts into your tiny, working-class, taking-a-night-class-because-I-gotta-do-two-shifts-at-the-hospital-then-pick-up-my-kids-from-their-dad's-house brains. I no longer have to look down from my veranda at trailer parks, or hear the sickening strains of country music floating up from the old millhouses on the edge of town.
Forget that you have made the most of what little opportunity is available to you. Forget that your school has a lower budget and can't offer you five-star faculty because the state won't fund their over-inflated salaries. Forget that where you live is cheaper than the city, and has no crime, and takes care of its own. Forget that you do everything on a shoe string, from your Pell Grants to your Dollar Store notebooks, yet somehow manage to care, and get B's, and generally be awesome. Instead, I'd like you to come on down to the real thinkin' house at Lofty U., where I work now, and maybe see a play, or try out the fabulous food in our dining halls. (Friday is gyro night!)
Whatever you decide, I'll be here in my ivory tower, working fewer hours for tons more money, and conveniently forgetting that real, actual teaching requires getting one's hands dirty and addressing the needs of a diverse student population. The wine and cheese parties after midterms are fabulous. You should come. I hear the waitstaff make excellent tips.
Noblesse oblige-ly,
Dr. Snootypants Keverdene, Pee-Haitch-Motherfuckin-DEE.p.s. Peel me a grape.