The Pendragon's Hall

In an effort to correct what seems to be a misunderstanding, I would like now to give my views of an event that will be of interest to about three of my readers. The rest of you can stay or not, just as you please. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will be back to more interesting news. My college, which I shall call Have-It University to protect the guilty, has recently announced the release of several highly popular faculty members, on the plea of needing a balanced budget. Because the most high-profile of these delivered a highly-suspect chapel sermon in which he told Christians to let the rest of the world go to Hell if it wanted to, and also pushed his Demcratic liberalism in a fashion not wise for a supposedly spiritual experience, some have assumed I would applaud his release, or that people like me would agree with it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dr. Bean, as I shall call him, as far as I can tell, is a man who takes his faith seriously. I strongly disagree with his politics and pretty much all of his ideology, but this much I can't deny: he is a man of great integrity. Beyond this, he is a stellar teacher. I have never taken any of his classes, but I roomed with someone who did and have many friends who have, and I have yet to hear any review of his class that has anything negative about it. He is an intelligent professor with a skill for teaching and relating difficult concepts in easy-to-understand lingo and this is hard to come by these days. Finally, he is one of the most friendly, outgoing people on campus, and this is a big deal to me, following my experiences in Europe. He doesn't know me from the first Adam as far as I know, but he always smiles as says hello when I pass him in the halls. He doesn't look too happy these days, and who can blame him? Nobody was consulted, as far as I can tell--it was a shock to the rest of the faculty. But then again Have-It's administration has never been much for discussing moves; don't let me get started on their chapel scanning policy. It's their way or the high way and because one of the three-member committee who run the school decided it was necessary to balanced the budget, big faculty cuts are forthcoming. To me, this seems wrong. Dr. Bean has done nothing to deserve being released: he is a capable teacher and blends faith and learning (in his own way) in a way I would think most liberal art schools would appreciate. Furthermore, Have-It has announced as its goal a bigger student body, about the size of 1400 students, by 2010. They have taken steps towards this goal by expanding buildings on campus, meanwhile firing popular faculty, making campus life miserable for current students, and obliterating majors. Yeah, that makes good sense. I am sorry for Dr. Bean and others, who are, as I see it, victims of an oligarchical regime, making arbitrary decisions at a supposedly Christian university. Good show, fellows.