Yes, it is called “Assdules.”

 

Situated on a bucolic rural campus with few distractions, Willard College is the ideal institution to serve your graduate study needs. Whether your interest is law, medicine, business, advanced graduate studies, sports studies, leisure studies, advanced graduate studies, or a doctoral program in one (or two) of over 500 disciplines, look no more. Willard College University Graduate Programs are committed to you, and only you. Make a difference. Make it Willard!

Dear President Cotton, After a string of emails from “Chip,” it looks as if he may be blackmailing us. He wrote: “I am available for consulting, if interested I will send you a fee schedule.” In a follow up email, “Chip” wrote: “I live five hours from any airport, and I only travel by Greyhound bus. By my calculations, it should take about 48 hours to get from my home in [deleted] to Willard. Once I’m there, we can talk in person about my ideas concerning the actualization of the Podule System.”

How shall I proceed?

Provost Confabuloso

Dear President Cotton, We are getting LITERALLY inundated with emails of support for the Podule system and its implications beyond curricular redesign. See below from a guy named “Chip,” a professional blogger on questions of public policy.

“Excellent point, the whole concept of “faculty” is not only elitist but so 20th century. Students should be able to leverage their own holistic senses of achievement synergistically with each other, upload the creative products into their online learning portfolio to show their ability to critically think about social media and other crucially important things. I mean, who needs history or english, that doesn’t even make sense any more!”

We either move forward quickly with Facultix or we are consigned to the dustbin of history. I will prepare a study on this issue soon.

Provost Confabuloso

“What about just phasing out faculty altogether? Students could have peer counselors or RAs advise them in their residential self-directed online and collaborative learning.”

This question, from Indiana, is leading our administration towards a series of very fruitful and interesting conversations!

We are assessing the implications of this interesting question.

Dear Faculty,

Several questions have arisen since sending out the notice regarding Podules. Below are your questions and my answers!

Question: What the [deleted] are these [deleted deleted] podules?

Answer: Podules are a more efficient, clean, and best-practice way to organize learning.

Question: How will chairs of departments fit into the new Podule system?

Answer: In the reduntification of departments, we have also reduntified chairs.

How will the Podule system deal with prerequisites? For example, how exactly would we determine who is eligible for advanced seminars in biology?

Answer: Prerequisites will be integrated into the podule system as it becomes fully operationalized.

Thank you, Provost Confabuloso

 

Dear Willard College Faculty,

As discussed at the last Faculty Senate meeting, the College, in collaboration with faculty, has made final determination of the outline of the summer reorientation program. Please plan on reviewing and revising any summer research, travel, vacation, or surgery, as the reorientation will be somewhat time consuming. So, what is the Summer Reorientation?

Based on focus group data from faculty, Willard College will immediately dissolve all academic departments. This is following best practices as recently laid out by Plymouth State College. Instead of departments, those very nineteenth century hold outs, faculty shall organize into PODULES. There will be six podules that faculty may join:  Investigation, Curiosity, Confusion, Choice, Insight, and Living. Incoming Willard College freshman will select their Podule during summer orientation. During their time at Willard, they may change their podule as often as they please. The only department to which this new program DOES NOT apply is the Department of Foreign Modern Languages as they had already anticipated this change and presently operate as a mobile podule.

Once again, Gingrich and Associates was invaluable in making the reorientation happen. Also, although he is no longer with us, we wish to extend deep gratitude to former provost Pillow, whose dedication to laying the groundwork for this project was critical. We wish him well in his current situation.

Sincerely, Provost Confabuloso

Dear Willard Community,

It is with no small amount relief that I announce that after an exhaustive internal audit of President’s Special Funds, we determined that large sums of cash were missing. I appointed my Vice President for Media Relations and Internal Affairs Claude Confabuloso, to look further into the matter. Vice President Confabuloso came to the determination that the funds had been illegally removed over the course of over three years by Provost Pillow. The Sylvester County Sheriffs’ Office was notified and after reviewing the documentation collected by Vice President Confabuloso, took Provost Pillow into custody. He has been charged with felonious embezzlement and faces up t0 ten years in federal prison. While at present, we are not at liberty to discuss the exact amount stolen, how Provost Pillow accessed the President’s Special Funds, or what personal factors may have driven someone whose almost year of service at Willard College has been otherwise unimpeachable, I can say that we are busy creating a slate of promising individuals who will be considered to temporarily serve as provost until a time when we can offer the position to a qualified candidate. I also wish to convey my deep gratitude to Vice President Confabuloso, whose investigative skills allowed law enforcement to act decisively.

With relief that our Willard community can move forward from this situation,

President Cotton

 

Dear Prospective College-attendees,

What if you don’t get in anywhere? How will you feel in mid-April as your friends gather around to compare admissions letters and aid packages and sports scholarships? How will that feel? Will it feel as bad as when your 11th grade prom date ditched you mid-way through that slow dance? Will it be somewhat like when your parents announced they were getting divorced and they were going to marry your best friend’s parents, who were also getting divorced?

There is a better way to go to College. It is the Willard Way. And we are here to help you feel better.

Give us a call or drop by.

Sincerely,

Provost Pillow