To Dean or Not to Dean

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 heart-ache and the thousand natural emails  
A Dean is heir to: ’tis an inbox deflation  
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to teach; 
To teach, perchance to publish -- ay, there’s the rub:  
For in that tenured life what schemes 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 and scorns at tea-time,  
Th' president’s wrong, the loud colleague's contumely, 
The pangs of prodigal 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 unmerciful referee report, from whose scorn 
No professor returns, dispirits the will, 
And makes us rather bear those bills we have 
Than write more grants that we know not of? 
Thus conscience doth make Deans of us all; 
And thus the creative view of administration 
Is sicklied 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. 

(August 2018, Jon Jacobsen)