Since vacation time is upon us, we thought we’d share a few higher education-themed jaunts we’ve been dreaming of:
1) Phagwara, Punjab
Phagwara is home to the best-monikered university in the world: Punjab’s Lovely Professional University. Yes, really, that’s what it’s called – it was founded by India’s Lovely group, which specializes in agricultural goods. This would be worth a trip just to say you’d been. If there’s a more awesomely-named university anywhere, we have yet to hear it.
2) Los Angeles
To ride on Traveler, the horse belonging to the USC Trojan. In 2004, this animal received a $2 million dedicated endowment – which has since grown to closer to $3 million – which must rank among the least useful acts of philanthropy of all time.
3) Any place where Michael Vipperman tries to get a job this summer
Just so we can ask his prospective employer whether, after loudly declining his degree on stage last week, his principles extend to refusing to put the degree on his CV.
4) Winston-Salem, North Carolina & Providence, Rhode Island
To see the two best school mascots in the United States: the UNC School of the Arts’ “Fighting Pickle”, and Rhode Island School of the Arts’ talismanic “Scrotie”. Yes, it’s what you think it is. Photos here, but we wouldn’t recommend scrolling down to Scrotie’s entry while you’re at work. Anyone who tries to tell you Fine Arts students are more refined than those puerile jocks, just show ‘em this.
Unfortunately, since we don’t really do vacations here at HESA Towers, we’re going to have to keep these trips for another time. But since we know most of you take holidays at this time of year, this blog will also be taking a break. We’ll be off the air for the next ten days, before coming back on July 3rd with a reduced summertime program of “One Thought to Start Your Week”. Regular daily service will resume on August 20th.
Meantime, we’d like to ask all of you a favour. Over the past ten months, we’ve posted just over 90,000 words in this blog. If we’re going to do it again next year, we’d like to make sure that we’re keeping our audience informed, engaged, entertained and not too enraged (though if we aren’t provoking you once in awhile, we probably aren’t doing our job). Let us know what you really like and what you really don’t like. Tell us how we can improve. We’d sure like to know.
Have a great summer.
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A highlight of my day is Usher’s “One Thought”. Not so much today’s. The snarky remark about Vipperman and his principled graduation protest reminds me once again that no good deed goes unpunished. Why do we expect so much more from those willing to do just a little bit more than everyone else?
Hi Kelly. Thanks for reading our stuff, and my apologies for not having approved this post sooner (my bad – got lost in my email)
The remark may have been a little snarky (it happens sometimes), but my point was that it’s not at all clear that Vipperman’s protest was principled. If he isn’t claiming a degree on his CV, then certainly it would be an example of principled protest – quite an impressive one, actually. But, if he is in fact claiming to have graduated on his CV, then he did not “reject his degree” and there was no actual sacrifice on his part – he just interrupted a ceremony for his own pet purposes. What’s principled about that?