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I RETURNED TO CAMPUS with a few minutes to spare before the start of the all-campus Student Retention Office faculty development session. I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of sitting through yet another SRO retreat, but I didn’t want to stay in my office either. Rodge Cowper, whose office adjoins mine, was playing his confidence-building recordings again. Pachelbel’s Canon, rendered on what sounded like a twenty-dollar toy keyboard, wheedled through the thin wall separating us.
“My intelligence, creativity, and potential is perfect and infinite,” announced the disembodied voice from Rodge’s office.
Your subject-verb agreement is another story, I reflected.
I dispensed a cup of coffee from my espresso machine and tried to ignore Rodge’s monotone affirmations. The first few times, I had considered asking Rodge to turn it down, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t be horribly embarrassing for both of us. So I did nothing, and now I was stuck. I couldn’t say anything now. Not after weeks of hearing Rodge assuring himself that he is a sexual, self-confident and dominant male.
Emma pushed into my office, followed by Pat.
“Ready?” Emma asked.
“Almost. We still have a few minutes.”
“So what is this one about again?” Pat asked.
“What do you think it’s about?” Emma snapped. “Retention, retention, retention. It’s the Student Retention Office. They’re gonna tell us how we hafta keep our seats filled with warm bodies.”
“I think we’re reconsidering the ‘warm’ requirement,” Pat said. “Too stringent.”
“I walk with confidence,” the affirming voice intoned from next door. “Women are drawn to me.” I wondered whether Pachelbel’s Canon could go on forever on an infinite loop.
“Isn’t that right, Molly?” Emma was saying.
“Sorry?”
“Retention is all about selection,” Emma said. “Get smart, wealthy students. They’re up to the academic demands, and they can spend time studying cause they don’t have to work. That’s how you get a high graduation rate.”
“I reject those claims,” Pat said. “I refuse to agree with a system that reproduces privilege so blatantly.”
“Sorry, Pat. You don’t get to pretend that something isn’t true just cause you don’t like it.”
“We have to go to this thing anyway,” I said. “Let’s keep an open mind. Maybe this time they’ll actually teach us something useful.”
“Yeah, maybe they’ll teach us how to be in touch with reality,” Emma said. “Even those of us who teach in the English department.”
“Or maybe they’ll teach us how not to scare students away,” Pat replied pointedly. Emma’s introductory biology class has one of the highest drop rates in the university. It’s not her fault. The Student Retention Office had convinced Emma’s department chair to remove the course prerequisites in order to maximize enrollment. Hordes of hopeful and utterly unprepared students sign up every semester for Emma’s class. Her first midterm invariably plays out like the invasion of Normandy, only more bloody. About half the class drops right afterward, but by then it’s too late for them to get their tuition refunded.
“I exude confidence, sex, power, and self-esteem,” announced Rodge’s affirmation through the wall.
Emma snorted. “I can’t believe the sorry crew I have this semester. I wish I could scare them away. I’m never going to get them to drop because they ‘need’ my class. They all think they’re going to medical school. Do you know what happened to me today? I just gave them a little quiz, with a simple question about the nucleotide bases of DNA. So the quizzes come back, and I’m getting every letter of the alphabet!”
She looked from Pat to me and back again.
“You two have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? Never mind. The point is I’m worried I’m gonna have to dumb down my class even more than I already have, otherwise I won’t get tenure.”
“Oh, don’t worry about tenure,” I said. “They’re using our online evaluations for tenure decisions now, remember?”
“That’s right,” Pat said. “Crowdsourcing.”
“Oh yeah? I’ll be okay then.”
Emma, Pat and I had originally used the anonymous professor rating site as a source of entertainment. When our administration started to use it to evaluate faculty performance, we stepped up to power-user status, flooding the site with positive evaluations for ourselves and for one another. Thanks to this strategy, Pat, Emma, and I were the three highest-ranked faculty members at Mahina State University.
“That reminds me,” I said. “My stock wasn’t very high at the Student Retention Office when Kathy Banks passed away, and I hate to think about what kind of notes she must have left for her replacement. Maybe you guys should send me a little ratings love, to give me some headroom.”
“Right now?” Pat asked.
“Not this minute. I think it’s time for us to head up there. Pat, are you coming?”
“You don’t have to go, Pat,” Emma said. “Part-timers don’t have to do the professional development stuff.”
“Nah, I’ll go. There’s free food, and I don’t have anything better to do.”
“Good. It’ll be less boring that way.”
I pushed myself up off my yoga ball and retrieved my laptop bag from my lower left desk drawer.
“What did I tell you about the lower left drawer?” Pat said.
“The lower left drawer is the first place purse thieves look. Look, this office is not exactly a tempting target. I think I’m okay.”
“Yeah, look around, Pat," Emma said.
With its stained, corroded ceiling tiles, bare fluorescent tubes, and rusty file cabinets, my office has little to covet. And any burglar who did manage to venture behind my desk would probably trip over my yoga ball on the way out.
Rodge’s eight-bit version of Pachelbel’s Canon swelled. Deedle deedle deeeeee, deedle deedle deeeee...
A wave of nausea engulfed me as I reached for my purse. We were only going up to the Student Retention Office. I’d been there a million times. What was wrong with me?
Emma was next to me, holding my wrist. “Molly, what is it? You just went white, and your skin feels clammy.”
“She’s actually kind of greenish,” Pat observed helpfully.
“Women are drawn to me,” Rodge’s affirmation added. “I am a self-assured, confident, sexual and dominant male.”
I could feel rebel forces gathering in my stomach. This wasn’t going to turn out well. Emma glanced down at her wristwatch. “Molly, your pulse! Nineteen beats in ten seconds.”
“What does that mean? Why are you taking my pulse with the metric system?” I felt myself sway. Emma grabbed my shoulders to stabilize me.
“Molly, where’s your prescription?” Pat sounded a little panicky. Pat never sounds panicky.
“No prescription. Please. I don’t want to swallow anything. Especially not some pill from Doctor Glassy-Eyes.”
I reached for the handle of my laptop bag. For some reason, I couldn’t grab it. My hands refused to obey me. Then the room started to lurch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could catch it shifting.
“You know what, Pat? I changed my mind. Can you hand me my bag? Quick.”
My office had started to spin, and it was picking up momentum. I was about to be sick. Anything was worth a try. I fumbled in my purse, hands shaking, and found the wrapped samples in the zipped side pocket.
“Here, Molly.” Pat gently removed the pills from my grasp. “Let me do that. How many are you supposed to take?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember! Two? I think?”
Pat unwrapped the pills and handed them to me. I gulped them down with warm coffee.
“You haven’t had any alcohol today, right?” Emma asked.
“I had wine at lunch.”
“How much?” Pat demanded.
“I don’t know. Donnie and I shared a bottle. So I guess a half-bottle?”
Pat and Emma exchanged a glance.
“You’ll be fine,” Emma assured me. “If anyone’s liver can handle it, yours can.”
“What’s that supposed to—”
“You okay now, Molly?” Pat took my elbow and hoisted me to my feet with one hand. “Come on, ladies. Let’s not be late.”
“I hope these pills don’t make me sleepy. I still have two more meetings after this SRO thing.”
“I read and meditate every day,” said the voice from Rodge’s office. “I possess all the knowledge in the universe.”
“What are we waiting for?” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I am well groomed,” added Rodge’s affirmation. “And my hair is attractively styled.”