Vole

 

September 26, 2023

Late yesterday afternoon I decided to make myself a tomato sandwich. I unwrapped the bread, went to do something in another room, and when I returned the same mouse, the one whose sad demise I had lamented, was nibbling on it. His eyes were defiant. Again he allowed me to pick him up without a struggle. This time he went into the trash bin, which was picked up in the dark of this morning. If he returns I’ll know he is supernatural.

A Google search reveals that my roommate was, in fact, a vole. It also says that voles rarely enter buildings. Its strange tameness was not explained. 

Encountered L in the Ingle’s parking lot. Each time I ask about UNCA from a former colleague, the mouth of lamentation opens. She’s the latest. Apparently it’s even worse for the English department, split– as it never was in my 37 years– between warring factions. S, whose arrival I celebrated with a dinner party at my house-- when I made an elaborate mushroom stew because she is a vegetarian– made everyone either her enemy or her ally in her struggle for tenure, and uses liberally the power of filing Title 9 complaints whenever a criticism of her can possibly (however improbably) be attributed to misogyny. Here’s misogyny for you: in my experience, the divisive, embittered and embittering destroyer of academic concord is invariably a woman. Her own will is more important to her than the mission of the institution. Her colleagues will, philosophically and politically, encourage this attitude, as if it evens out some ancient wrong. Nor is there any defense, because fact and reason are not allowable tools. There is only emotion–”but I FEEL it is thus-and-so-” and not everybody’s emotion, but only those who can present themselves as somehow vulnerable. Anything but full surrender to feelings– however ill-defined, however remote from truth–is presented as violence, and that presentation automatically accepted by an administration who wants nothing, really, except not to be questioned. Our former two-year Provost lasted long enough to eviscerate the department, which was once the strongest on campus. No more tenure hires for us. Those hired must be a minority, no matter competition or qualification. The salve for our sacrifice to diversity was to be they would not be on tenure track until they prove themselves, but that leaves open the possibility of several years of inadequate or incompetent staffing. According to L, that’s exactly what happened. The woman who replaced me and R is not only a bad poet, but misses classes and faculty meetings. She feels secure as the genetic identity that got her the job will be a powerful argument if she is ever threatened with losing it. The provost, of course, achieved this and ran off. Plus, he gave her $60,000 to start her very own reading series, independent from the designs of the department, which itself was never offered a penny. Dean Karen stupefied everyone with her kaleidoscope of inanities, and ran off to run a museum. All recent administrators have vandalized and run. All. The ruin of a once- promising school became irreversible when education disappeared as a priority. Money, tenure, influence, alliance, bailiwick, counter-punching, virtue-signaling, cancellation remain and thrive, but no one gives a goddam what the students learn, or fail to learn. No one with influence. Why does anyone still apply and attend? This began, as I and a few others knew, when the word “assessment” entered, then dominated, the conversation. What were we assessing? Our adherence to anti-pedagogical guidelines set down by the administration. It was a test of obedience, and, alas, we passed with flying colors. L said “Our legacy is disappearing.” I figured mine was gone even as I left without comment from the administration (or my department, it needs to be said), without the gifts one usually gets upon retirement, without an invitation back to campus for anything at any time. Not even to give them money. If I could think of anything to do about this I might grit my teeth and re-enter the fray. But I am old, feeble, and without a single weapon in my hand. And should I appear winged and haloed upon a shaft of light, THAT would offend someone, and it would be for nought. 

Killed a brown recluse in my bathroom.