Poking fun at campus news items in verse

UNC-Chapel Hill has one. So does Duke. And now UNCG and N.C. A&T want one. … UNCG and A&T both want a bell tower. …

“Bell towers on many campuses provide a sense of unity,” A&T Chancellor James Renick said. At a fast-growing A&T, he added, “it will be a dominant symbol. What we think is important is to have the appropriate symbol and appropriate climate.”

— Greensboro News & Record, “UNCG, A&T officials long for bell towers,” Sept. 2, 2003

Meditation MMIII

PERCHANCE they for whom this bell would toll may think so ill, as that they would know not it would toll for them; and perchance they may think themselves so much better off to see their state to have caused it to toll for them. If we understand aright the appropriate dignity of this bell that would toll for us, we would be glad to make it ours. The bell doth toll for them that think it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon them, they are united to Campus.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the campus, a part of the main. If a clod be awash in his own self, the campus is the less, as well as if a professor were, as well as if the manner of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s selfishness diminishes us, because we are all in this together, and therefore never send to know for whom this bell tolls; it tolls for we. I mean, for us.

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For a second year in a row, state lawmakers couldn’t find a way to pay for a new $180 million cancer center at UNC Chapel Hill. The school’s solution: Let’s get started anyway.

UNC Hospitals is asking a state agency to let it use $7 million of its reserves to start planning the new building, slated to open in 2009.

“We’re not waiting for any one event. We want to keep the momentum going,” said Karen McCall, vice president of public affairs for UNC Health Care.

The Charlotte Observer, “UNC pursues cancer center: Hospital officials seek way around lack of funds,” Sept. 1, 2003

[Enter Hillian]
To build, or not to build — that’s not the question:
Whether ’tis nobler at this time to suffer
The stingy cash flow of our state’s misfortune
Or to seek alms against our funding troubles,
And by our begging end them? Why beg? They’re cheap,
That’s all; and by “cheap” we say we mean
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
Our budget’s heir to. Our center’s construction’s
Devoutly to be wish’d. To beg, to build —
To build! perchance to dream: ay, there you go!
Our enterprise is of great need and momentum;
With this regard, let building start anew,
And keep the name of action.

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18-year-old Mark Edmonson filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court that contends UNC-CH unlawfully rescinded an admission acceptance offer it made in April. … Edmonson, who scored a perfect 1,600 on his SAT last year, graduated in May … But UNC-CH eventually learned Edmonson received a D, F and Cs during his senior year, prompting UNC-CH to write Edmonson a follow-up letter in July rescinding its offer.

Greensboro News & Record, “UNC admissions letter at suit’s center,” Aug. 20, 2003

Hello Chanc’lah, Admissions Off’cah
Here I am at Camp Slackoffa
School is useless, time just ill-spent,
They can say to get to work
But I’m in like Flint.

Sixteen hundred SAT score
That’s my free pass into your door
I can party senior year long
Fact I’m sitting in class right now
Writing this song.

All my counselors say, “Wise up, kid!
Or you’ll later wish that you did”
But I know my ticket’s punched now
If my laziness’ll hurt me
I don’t see how.

What’s the deal here with this letter?
“Hasta la vista? See you later?”
It’s a joke, right — not rejection?
Hey, you can’t do that to me;
I had perfection!

Take me back, Admissions Off’cah
Take me back, no more Slackoffa,
Don’t leave me
Out here to get a job
Because, you know, I’m just a lazy slob

Take me back, I promise
I will study more
And go to class ’cause that’s what class is for
Oh please don’t keep me out
You’ve made me whine and pout.

Wait a minute — got an idea!
You’re a law school — hire a lawyer!
Suing you now — gee, that’s better
Chanc’lah, Off’cah
Kindly disregard this letter!

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Sanders’ previous affronts to verse may be viewed here and here.