Microcomm Publications - Poetry: Doomed to Fail

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Doomed to Fail
(why Williamsport?)
Copyright © 2013 by Dr. H. Paul Shuch

Chance and circumstances fueled my move to Williamsport.
Never my first choice, it was in fact a last resort.
Living for three decades by the San Francisco Bay,
I had grown to love the climate; thought that I would stay.
After my divorce, I had to find another way.

Sold the house. Dividing up community property
Provided for the family, with little left for me.
Two kids starting college. I put some aside for each
And although I had a job, could always stay and teach,
Real estate in San Jose was priced beyond my reach.

At an avionics conference in Daytona Beach,
Met a dean from what could be another place to teach.
I had been in Pennsylvania many years before,
As an undergraduate. Now I could explore
Rural culture, education, scenery, and more.

His small vo-tech campus sounded interesting to me:
Recently acquired by Penn State University.
Most existing faculty had no advanced degrees;
They were adding four-year programs. Needed PhDs
To develop Bachelor's courses. I was one of these.

When I got to Williamsport - well, speak of culture shock!
Why was there no Starbucks on the corner of each block?
Worse, I hoped to innovate, but quickly came to fear
Progress would be slow. As my new colleagues made it clear,
"Sorry, but that's not the way we do things around here."

Seems our college president had set up a no-win:
Forty Full Professors foiled before we could begin.
The fact we had been hired in at the salary schedule's top.
Made the entrenched faculty determined now to stop
Innovation before we could even set up shop.

The president was confident that this was no mistake.
"You have to break some eggs," he said, "if you intend to bake."
However, the enrollment figures that he had desired
Were failing to produce the revenue the Board required
To keep the college solvent. So, the president was fired.

All this brings me, sadly, to the moral of this tale:
Any two-tiered faculty is surely doomed to fail.
Four-year programs changed the very nature of the school,
Drawing, as they had to, from a different student pool.
After seven years, I left. You think that I'm a fool?

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