by Jon Jacobsen (August 2018)
To Dean, or not to Dean? That is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The pings and memos of outrageous colleagues,
Or to take arms against a sea of emails,
And, by opposing, delete them? To die, to teach;
No more; and by a teach to say we end
the heartache and the thousand natural emails
That Deans are heir to, ’tis an inbox deflation
Devoutly to be wished! To die, to teach.
To teach, perchance to publish -- ay, there’s the rub;
For in that tenured life what research may come,
When we have shuffled off this administrative coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
that makes amity of administrative strife.
For who would bear the quips unborn of rhyme,
Th' president’s wrong, the proud colleague's contumely,
The pains of disparaged costs, the committee’s delay,
The insolence of bosses, and the burns
That patient Deans from th' unworthy take,
When he himself might his resignation make
With a bare email? Who would regulations bear,
To report and assess under an administrator’s life,
But that the dread of publish or perish,
The undiscovered referee report, from whose scorn
No professor returns, imposters the skill,
And makes us rather bear those bills we have
Than write more grants that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make Deans of us all;
And thus the creative view of administration
Is quickly o'er, one’s time all but bought,
And enterprises herewith to go foment
With this regard their progress turns awry,
And lose their precious traction. — Soft you now!
I dare Email-ya! — Slim, in thy reply
Be all my wins remember’d.