Committee, Comity, Come to Me

1. If the military get to wear campaign and award ribbons on their chest and Republicans get to wear American-flag pins on their lapel, should we civilians be able to wear insignia for poems, photographs, short stories, novels published, votes cast?

2. Is serving on a committee an integral part of being a teacher?

3. What is a good population balance between academics and civilians on a committee?

4. Can any man or woman who is an academic be all bad? (This is a variation on a theme by W.C. Fields in which his point of comparison was any man who hates children and horses.)

5. Is it fair to divide the concept of "an academic" into academics who are theoreticians and academics who are creative? (Remember: Joyce Carol Oates, who can be pretty theoretical, is an academic, who also does a sensitive piano rendition of Chopin.)

6. Is it true that artists (paint, photo, poetry, fiction, nonfiction) who want to teach secretly want to try out the academic regalia?

7. Is it true that academics secretly want to paint, photograph, write poetry/fiction/memoir?

8. Is it the major function of the theorist/academic to explain to the artist what the artist has done?

9. Does the artist want to have explained what he or she has done?

10. If you answered yes to # 9, do you think this has anything to do with getting grant or foundation funding?

11. Shelly spent three hours in a______meeting today.
a. academic
b. political
c. editorial
d. boring
e. fun
f. exploratory

12. The sandwiches were:

a. academic
b. political
c. editorial
d. boring
e. fun
f. exploratory
g. kosher/halal
h. vegan

13. There are _____masters of fine arts in the world.

a. enough
b. too many
c. not enough
d. a frightening lack of
e. an amusing plethora of
f. declines to state