Dear Willard College Community,

I’ve been asked by the president, Henry Cotton, to announce that the US ambassador to Argentina, Noah Mamet has cancelled his prior commitment to give the  2014 commencement address for Willard College. His talk, which had been tailor-made for our learning community was entitled “What you need to know, and what you don’t need to know, to succeed in America!” A well known bundler for political campaigns, Mr. Mamet was recently nominated to the ambassadorship of  Argentina, one of the most important of the Central American republics. Widely criticized for not speaking Spanish or knowing where Argentina is, Mr. Mamet would have shared his experiences that led from his nomination by President Obama to his arrival in the capital city of Tegucigalpa.

Our back-up speaker, the recently deceased collector of pre-1933 Central European art, Cornelius Gurlitt, is also not available.

The silver lining in all of this is that the Commencement Procession, “Triumph of the Will at Willard College” will proceed as planned. PLEASE remember to apply flame retardant to your processional gowns!

Finally, the 2014 Commencement Speaker will be none other than President Henry Cotton, who will share some of life’s lessons that he has learned during his tenure as president of our college.

Sincere regards, Provost Gauleiter

Dear Department Chairs, Please remember to use the template pictured above for your 2014-2015 course listings. Each departmental menu will then be incorporated into the Willard College Course Menu which we will be sending out to all incoming Willard students. The Menu will be large format, colorful, easy to read, and laminated for easy cleaning. Please remember to give your courses titles and descriptions that our students will find appetizing.

Best, President Henry Cotton

Attention all Willard College faculty

This is a reminder that the Willard College Career Development Office is officially out of bounds for faculty, whether tenured, on a tenure trailway, or on the FlexFaculty program. The director of the CDO, Dr. Joe Francq, reports that students looking for post-college career opportunities can barely get through the door, much less make appointments with counselors or get on the computers. He has also reported faculty smoking and apparently drinking on the premises.

On a related note, contracts for the 2014-2015 academic year have been delayed at the printers. They will be available by mid-September. If you have received a verbal commitment for the coming year, please consider that as a firm promise from this institution.

Sincerely, President Henry Cotton

Dear President Cotton,

As Chair of the Department of Foreign Modern Languages, and on behalf of the entire faculty, including the remaining tenured professors and our growing force of Flexible Faculty, we are deeply grateful for the investment that Willard College has made to streamlining and modernizing our instructional modalities. As you noted in your memorandum Assessing Assessment, we are moving towards .25 credit courses which, when considered along with the move away from housing the department in a single stationary building, change had to happen, and fast! The mobile classroom-office system generates efficiencies, especially since so few of the faculty require, or are eligible for, the increasingly valuable campus office and classroom space. As we discussed at the meeting last week with you and Provost Gauleiter, being able to provide instructional time while students are being transported from one end of the campus to another, and the ways that this can both backfill interstitial  minutes and also increase credit hour generation , is a model that I hope the rest of the campus can emulate.

Best regards,

Dr. Luce Derangh

Chair, Department of Modern Foreign Languages

P.S. I was thrilled to hear that you and Cheryl Tina had such a nice time in Paris. Sounds like taking an actual French class would have been a waste of time since, as you note, everyone pretty much “speaks English or credit card.” By the way, yes, $350 sounds a bit steep for a cab ride from Charles de Gaulle Airport to downtown. Good thing that was “expense account material!”

Dear Humanities Faculty, My congratulations to the work recently completed by the Assessment Advisory Committee, under the firm guiding hand of Associant Dean Welzr. We are excited to announce the “Scantron Essay” assignment guidelines. While on one hand, it seems incredible that faculty still assign and grade essay assignments, it is more astonishing that until now there was no viable alternative. Our innovation really puts Willard College out in front of the pack in terms of delivering a product that has maximum assessibility and gradibility efficiencies. The concept is so simple. The assignment administrator prepares an essay and then breaks it apart sentence by sentence. Students then must select the correct sentence from a choice of five sentences. The Scantron Essay can be as short as five sentences or as long as five pages! Writing and grading writing have never been so easy.

We are confident that the Willard Scantron Essay will become the premium pre-written essay assignment in higher education.

Sincerely, President Henry Cotton

Please answer the following essay prompts. The Willard College Dean of Admissions, Dr. Leonard Primple, will use your answers to assess your application file.

1. Why do you wish to attend Willard College?
2. Tell us a little bit about your family? What sort of house did you grow up in? What was the neighborhood like? Did you vacation at the local state forest or in Paris?
3. Can you explain why a table setting would have more than two forks?
4. What kind of work do your parents do? Do you wish to follow in their footsteps? Upon graduation from college, do you anticipate working in the family business? What sort of business is it and what is its capitalization?
5. How much money do you have in your wallet right now? What do the credit limits on the credit cards in your possession reveal about who you are as a person?
6. Explain your feelings about debt? Does it make a difference if the debt is in your name or in that of a close family member?
7. What kinds of career goals do you have? Do you think the college one attends should be held responsible if you cannot obtain work in your desired field?

Dear Willard Community,

We regret to inform you that the previously contracted commencement speaker, Herbert Kutschbach, will not be available. Since agreeing to speak at our commencement, his health has deteriorated, making travel from Bolivia to the United States extremely difficult. The good news is that we will be sticking with the Triumph of the Will theme, even as we search out a new commencement speaker.

Meanwhile, I should like to remind everyone that the scheduled daily drills and rehearsals are continuing. Please block out 3pm-6pm and be dressed out and ready to go. As all faculty are required to participate, classes normally held at those hours have been cancelled for the remainder of the semester. Rehearsals and drills will also take place on Saturdays and Sundays.

By now, you have received the three 3-ring binders with the choreography, music, costumes (including costume changes), instructions for handling the torches, and for those deemed in need of trimming their weight, a diet plan. You should memorize those parts that have been highlighted in yellow; yellow highlighter indicates the portion of the plan that are specific to your part. Your costumes have already been purchased, an expense that the college will absorb until the cost (including tax, shipping and a nominal handling fee) has been deducted from your next pay check.

I don’t need to remind the Willard College faculty and staff that this program means a great deal not only to the college, but to Associate Provost for Admissions, Curtland Schickel, Provost Gauleiter, the Board of Trustees, and me.

I’ll see you out on the football field soon.

Best, President Henry Cotton