Summer School Tests Creative Method of Combating Grade Inflation:

By order of the administration, no one enrolled in the Summer School will get better than a C in any class. If this strategy succeeds in bringing grades down, it may be employed during the regular term as well.

The “Saddam Hussein” of Continuing Education:

Last, but certainly not least, there has been a widely publicized feud between the head honcho of the Summer School—Dean of Continuing Education and Extension Michael Shinagel—and a certain Summer School faculty member, Professor Hue Briss. Apparently, Dr. Briss had been taking his students to Red Sox games instead of holding class. Shinagel summoned him to a meeting where it was suggested that perhaps doing one’s job is the best way of doing one’s job. Briss had never been challenged by anyone, ever, about anything, and was extremely shocked and incredibly insulted that Shinagel had the unbridled temerity to imply that anything he did could be the least bit wrong.

Using his sycophantic colleague as a spokesperson, Dr. Briss released the following statement: “I have never been insulted in this particular way. Going to Red Sox games is the way I communicate to my students. Dean Shinagel is behaving like a bull in a china shop. But I suppose that in this society, once a summer school professor has the albatross around his neck, its hard for him to shake it off.”

After a drawn out soap opera in which his students begged him to stay and Shinagel apologized publicly and profusely, Briss just yesterday announced that he would be moving to another university where he would be able to act as inappropriately as he pleased all the time, or, as he put it, where he would be “appreciated and respected.” Dean Shinagel, he remarked in an interview broadcast nationally, is the “Saddam Hussein of continuing education.” Asked to explain, Briss continued, “I realize that the analogy is extremely offensive and inappropriate, but Dean Shinagel’s decision to ask me to do my job properly justifies any and all of my behavior and remarks. So really, it’s all his fault. Good riddance to him, and to the Harvard Summer School.”

Zachary S. Podolsky ’04, a Crimson editor, is a classics concentrator in Currier House. This summer, he is engaged in the highly lucrative fields of Summer School proctoring and converting Byzantine Greek manuscripts into electronic format.