Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Don't Be The Bunny

There have always been bunnies, and always will be bunnies. I'm glad that small school faculty still have enough power to push aside sham 'duty of loyalty':
The president of a small Maryland college who likened struggling freshmen to bunnies that should be drowned resigned Monday, nearly six weeks after the student newspaper published the comment and ignited a national firestorm of criticism.

..."The board is grateful to President Newman for his many accomplishments over the past year, including strengthening the university's finances, developing a comprehensive strategic plan for our future and bringing many new ideas to campus that have benefited the entire Mount community," Coyne said.

...The story that triggered the firings described Newman's plan to identify struggling freshmen and offer them help, or tuition refunds if they chose to leave school early in their first semester. The story quoted from a Newman email saying he hoped 20 to 25 students would leave before the cutoff date for reporting the school's enrollment to the federal government, thereby boosting the student-retention rate, one of the factors publications such as U.S. News & World Report use in ranking desirable colleges. Critics said the plan seemed more focused on weeding out struggling students than helping them succeed.

The newspaper reported that Newman had told a faculty member opposed to the plan: "This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies, but you can't. You just have to drown the bunnies ... put a Glock to their heads." Newman later acknowledged he used those words and apologized for them.

Regarding hapless bunnies, in the time since DMTC presented "Urinetown" in 2013, people have posted more videos on YouTube:




I'm particularly fond of "Cop Song":

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