Meanest Man On Campus


Professor "Bruce Wayne" Bequette


            Declares His


     "Contract on Rensselaer"

Some of my previous accomplishments include:

  • Exams on Valentine's Day [1]

  • Three-hour exams given within a one-hour exam slot [2]

  • Leaving town for a one-week conference when a major case study was due [2] (my TA was out of town at the same conference)

  • Three-hour make-up exams given at 10:00 pm [3]

  • No grading curve [4]

    Selected Items from "The Contract"

    Although I have earned this award based on past achievements, I selected a diverse [5] process team to develop a plan to ensure that I remain the meanest man on campus into the 21st century [6]. I call this bold new initiative my "Contract on Rensselaer".

  • I am a firm believer in curriculum reform. Since the proposed 4x4 plan has little support from students or faculty, I propose a much more ambitious 128^3 plan [7]. Students are expected to spend 128 hours/week for 128 weeks for 128 credit hours for 1 course. By making a students' entire degree program consist of a single course there will be many administrative benefits [8], [9].

  • I am also a strong believer in academic welfare reform. I propose "academic orphanages" for those unfortunate students who lose an advisor due to the RIF (reduction-in-force) or some other untimely event. Students without an advisor will be housed together in computer rooms where they can perform their own "interactive" virtual advising.

  • Since the students having the most trouble with a course are the ones that receive much of an instructors attention, I propose that students receiving A's in a course receive "grade credits" that can be used to upgrade their housing accommodations. After all, the A students should not be forced to interact with students of a lower class rank.

  • Also, as part of my goal to eliminate academic welfare, I propose to institute a plan for academic workfare. Students on academic probation will be allowed to return to their studies after spending time on buildings and grounds crews [10],[11], [12].

  • I plan to obtain corporate sponsorship from General Motors for "GM" week. Selected students will obtain valuable experience as GM employees for the week [13].

    The following are new ideas.

  • I propose a "balanced grade" amendment [14].

  • I plan to streamline the faculty teaching evaluation form [15].

  • I am a strong supporter of NAFTA. As such, I am proposing a new "Department of Pollution Engineering" [16].

  • I am instituting a new "don't ask, don't tell" policy [17].

  • I have discovered a unique way to balance the Rensselaer budget [18].

  • It should be noted that I am the "outsider" candidate in this election. After all, it is easy to be a "mean man" if you teach physics or thermodynamics. It is much tougher to be a mean man when you teach a course like material and energy balances [19].

    It should be noticed that this campaign has not been without its' problems. For one, I have been brutally attacked for my lack of military service [*,**].

    Many more exciting ideas are detailed in "The Contract" (e.g. no more funding for WRPI, student "term limits", etc.).

    Footnotes

    [1] 32.4510 Chemical Process Control, 1989 and 1994.

    [2] 20.2030 Material and Energy Balances, Fall 1994.

    [3] 32.4510 Chemical Process Control, 1995.

    [4] A grading ethics committee investigation is still in progress.

    [5] Basically any student that was indebted to me for letters of recommendation, etc.

    [6] I anxiously await the new U.S. News and World Report issue on "Meanest Persons on Campus, Heterosexual, European-American Male Category". Hopefully, I will establish an initial position in the middle third of the upper quartile.

    [7] For MATLAB users this is 128^3; for LLC majors this is 2,097,151.997 (calculation performed with a "Pentium inside" computer).

    [8] Since the tuition for the single course must be paid in advance, President Pipes and the Board of Trustees can throw more lavish parties and purchase a Rensselaer Yacht (ala' Stanford) for their study of "50 miles of the Bahamas Coastline".

    [9] By basing a students grade on a single exam, given at the end of the course, we will save the Registrar a lot of administrative costs.

    [10] The workload will be particularly heavy immediately before graduation, Parent's and Alumni weekends.

    [11] Psychic students will be asked to levitate the Stephen Van Rensselaer house, to make the move to campus easier.

    [12] Selected students will be allowed to spend time building Jacuzzi's on Long Island for my Brother-In-Law.

    [13] In addition, this will provide GM with an important new source of employees to layoff during the next corporate "restructuring", due to take place at the end of GM week.

    [14] There must be an equal number of A's and F's (also, B's and D's) in any course.

    [15] The form will have one question: This instructor [is]/[is not] the worst instructor I have ever had. If the answer = [is], the instructor cannot be held responsible for his/her poor teaching, because he/she may have suffered severe grade trauma as an undergraduate.

    [16] Many of our pollution intensive industries will be moving to Mexico. Because of many years of government regulation (EPA, OSHA, etc.), our industries are too clean and efficient. Rensselaer will be on the "cutting edge" by training engineers that can design manufacturing plants that pollute the environment (This idea has the added benefit of providing opportunities for the new Department of Environmental and Energy Engineering).

    [17] OK, I don't now what that means either.

    [18] We will provide the infamous FAIMS financial accounting software system free of charge to all of our creditors. Since they will then have no idea how much we owe them, our financial worries will be over (of course, if a student is 3 minutes late with a tuition payment, we will slap them with the customary fine (see [8]).

    [19] There is only one equation for this course: in = out. Of course, I created challenging problems that required other solutions, such as out = in, in - out = 0, or out - in = 0.

    [*] I was a graduate student during the "Invasion of Genada" and the "Attack on Panama", and therefore used a graduate student deferment to avoid military service. It should be noted that I supported the right of Americans (who can't get into a real medical school) to attend medical schools in Grenada and take courses like: "An Introduction to the Human Body" (studies of the Madonna Playboy photographs), and "How to Find a Shrewd Malpractice Lawyer".

    [**] (Vietnam? Wasn't that the war where they played groovy ("way-cool") music and got high all the time?)

  • Postscript Copy of The Original Version of This Document

    For more information on how you can help with this campaign, contact the campaign manager, Gaurav Agarwal, agarwg@rpi.edu