April 14, 2020

Cool, bright day. The department met on Zoom, and I realized that it will be the last department meeting of my professional life. No mention was made of that. We talked of how to get our bewildered students through this uncertain time. It is a sad, dark time, and not only because of the virus. The institution I served through my adult life slides toward mediocrity–past mediocrity, actually, toward real debility. Without bragging I can say it will never–in the foreseeable future– know a professor like me again. It is Jerusalem without her prophets. E, perhaps, but the situation makes him so miserable I see a potential change of profession for this man who was born to be an academic. Never again–in the foreseeable future–will any decision be made at this institution with truth, academic freedom, educational priorities, social progress, or the welfare of the students foremost in the mix. A university run like a business is no longer a university. Like Trump, it tries to cut as many corners, be as useless and retrograde as it can be without being caught. I cannot see the end of this, nor did I get the sense from the department that they can either. Grab a floating beam and save what you can. I saw the best of times at UNCA. I suppose I’m a sort of irritation because they will not.
I thought of Frost:
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

Four cartons of Night, Sleep arrived at my door. There must have been a reason. I’ve forgotten what it was. Ken loved Jason of the Apes. We agree that WR could play the lead role. W, E, K, young faces just beginning– I watched them during the meeting, sad that I didn’t know them better, recognizing that’s it’s possible I will never see them again.