all this hassle
So, I was headed to the official campus B&N in order to gossip about my latest peccadilloes with a friend and colleague, and I noticed something in the bookstore window that kind of set me off: a number of tee shirts emblazoned with the legend “All This Hassle for a Tassel,” then marking the graduation year of 2009.
I think the sentiment expressed in awful enough: for one thing, while it is true and problematic that university life is bound by bureaucracy at many levels, and while it is true that university study is often stressful and frustrating, I think it is immensely inappropriate for the university’s Board of Governors (or whoever is in charge of licensing the use of university insignia) to allow university images to be associated with that sentiment. The university should not be in the business of encouraging students to think of its rules, structures, and guidelines as a hassle.
I think the other part of the phrase (the tassel) is equally egregious, if not moreso. What this little rhyme does is suggest thatthe end product of a university education is nothing more than signifier of having completed four years of hassle and frustration. In a university like my own, which has struggled for many years with low retention rates, an equation between education and a hassle is ethically unconscionable, at least to the extent that our (much-touted) Urban Mission charges us with the work of reaching out to and assisting those students at the greatest risk of falling prey to the “all this hassle” mindset. Moreover, I believe this is also part and parcel of the trend toward vocationalization of the university, which is a problem I’m still very much invested in working through at the theoretical and pedagogical levels.
Grr! All this dirt for a shirt.
go … the frak … away
That is my message to these people.
Best thing about this ad is that their org’s name abbreviates to NOM. As seen below:
Not the original, but can't find it. Anyway.
may as well die
… Cause I will never know happiness as pure and undiluted as I that given to me by the following: