My Final Strategic Plan

I don’t do goodbyes well. So, I’m just going to skip that part. I may be sarcastic and cold on the outside, but I have a secretly squee core that I expose to no one. Kind of like Snape. Except like Snape in the Order of the Phoenix, not the end of the Deathly Hallows — I’m not ready to tell my secrets yet, and I’m definitely not ready to acknowledge that I’m leaving Middlebury. So, I’m going to just ignore that and get on to my Strategic Plan. Not like the one formulated in May 2006 that contains lots of dense administrationese (which I hear is a language that may enter the Language School curriculum in 2013, along with legalese, Na’vi and English (Pirate) ... you heard it here first), but one that has lots of bad jokes and will improve Middlebury in far more tangible ways. Since this column is my last, I figured I should share my recommendations in one fell swoop. The heart of my Strategic Plan is something I addressed briefly in a column last September: Liebowitz’s Army. If this idea could be incepted (are we allowed to use this word anymore?) fully realized as I picture it, this College would be #1 on The Princeton Review’s “Colleges that run like butter” list instead of #4.

To recap, Liebowitz’s Army combines “the best features of the scholastic dark arts fighting brigade of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the Civilian Conservation Corps, created as part of the New Deal legislation passed during the Great Depression.” Such a venture would not only provide much-needed jobs to unemployed seniors, the members of the army would be able to fill roles in the College community which have sadly become a thing of the past. For example, there could be a contingent of Ron’s Platoon completely devoted to making pumpkin bread. There could be a black-ops mission to find bowls. They could fix broken windows and spirits. They could be sober friends. They could answer emails for administrators. They could increase diversity on campus with sheer brute force. They could run the Bunker. It’s a great idea, I know.

The feasibility of such an idea has been questioned. So, I’ve been thinking since I first proposed this idea last year, and I think I have a practical idea of how to mobilize students. Students are simple creatures. The administration just needs to promise that it’ll open Atwater if you get 5,000 alums (or participation in the Old Chapel militia could earn work/study) to sign up for your army. Actually, this offer works for anything you want to happen at the College. If you return 1,000 bowls, we’ll re-open Atwater.

If you stop setting things on fire, we will open Atwater. However, your window of opportunity is small. This carrot will only work until the class of 2012 graduates. It’s like the word communism — it scared people until 1989, but now it’s too abstract to have any power. Cheesy hearth bread is about to lose its meaning. Torture is also an option. For example, playing “Friday” every Friday on the Mead Chapel carillon. Or effective propaganda. I’m picturing Aunt Des in Rosie the Riveter posters, and Karl Lindholm as Uncle Sam.

Recommendation # 36: Encourage cynicism, subjectivity and lies in college media. I think all of the media outlets on campus should adopt strong ideological stances. The Campus could be like MSNBC, Midd Blog could be like Fox News. Middlebury Magazine could be like Mother Jones. The Gadfly, The National Review. Not only would this change make the dissemination of information at Middlebury far more interesting, and make all the content we produce more compulsively readable, but it would also better prepare all students, consumers and journalists, for the real world. Objectivity is dead, so we should shuck off our liberal arts college idealism as soon as possible and learn how to filter the truth from the bull.
Recommendation #67:  Demolish Battell, but have a paintball war inside before you blow it up.
Recommendation #13: Establish a Carol’s Hungry Mind satellite location on campus in order to improve town/gown relations.
Recommendation #42: Increase diversity by recruiting more rednecks. I feel like we are a forgotten minority. I think I blend in well — except when someone notices that I don’t pronounce “t”s — but it does get lonely sometimes.
Recommendation #30: Encourage spontaneous dance parties to foster community.
If anyone wants a copy of my entire Strategic Plan, with all 86 recommendations and all-color illustrations courtesy of John Birnbaum, feel free to email me at my exceptionally nerdy email address, ratherdashing27@gmail.com. You can also email me if you just get bored too. Especially after I graduate, when I will miss you all so. I appreciate pithy subject headings and good grammar, and promise to respond in an email that aims for wit, but descends into Anchorman and West Wing references and Ernest Hemingway quotes.

P.S. – I’m still waiting to hear about the whole Dean of Sarcasm and Snarkiness thing. I am as of yet unemployed, so I would still gladly accept such an offer, if it were to materialize in the next two weeks.