On Our Faculty
By long-standing tradition, appointment to the University faculty is offered only after a period of thoughtful scrutiny, during which the candidate is, in most cases, quietly declined at least twice for practice. The Regents consider this the entrance examination, and most of our current chairs did not, at the time, realize they had passed it.
The photographic register below was commissioned only after the Board conceded that prospective conferees prefer to see who has been shaping the tone of the institution they are about to join.
Faculty Register
Professor M. Carmichael-Dwight
The Pembroke-Hatch Chair of Petty Grievances, Department of Petty Grievances.
A thirty-year member of the faculty, Professor Carmichael-Dwight holds the endowed chair established by the University's founding regent and retains the original inkwell as a matter of principle. Her seminar, "Small Slights and Their Cultivation," remains the school's most fully subscribed exercise in remembering exactly what was said and why it mattered. Families often cite her syllabus when selecting a first degree for the household's sharpest operator.
Dean H. Northcote
Dean of Applied Dismissal, Department of Applied Dismissal.
Dean Northcote oversees the practical wing of the curriculum, in which students learn to conclude a conversation in under four syllables without technically having been rude. His published monograph, "The Nodded No," is unavailable in paperback and is still quoted by alumni whenever a clean refusal needs academic cover. He can often be heard saying "mm," which is, in his department, a full sentence.
Professor P. Ravendale
Chair of Institutional Side-Eye, Department of Institutional Side-Eye.
Appointed under the 1923 centennial expansion, Professor Ravendale is the University's foremost authority on the non-verbal register. She maintains office hours by standing near a window at predictable times, where prospective purchasers learn whether their intended degree has sufficient bite. Students who arrive prepared are given a look described in the departmental handbook as "warmly unconvinced."
Dr. A. Quillingham
Lecturer in Weaponized Sarcasm, Department of Weaponized Sarcasm.
Dr. Quillingham joined the faculty after a distinguished career in municipal correspondence, where his replies to local complaint forms were collected, bound, and submitted in lieu of a dissertation. His evening seminar, "The Said, the Meant, and the Well," is now the unofficial proving ground for anyone considering the Ph.D. in Weaponized Sarcasm. It remains difficult to transcribe because tone, regrettably, does most of the work.
Professor T. Bletchworth
Chair of Subtle Shade, Department of Subtle Shade.
Professor Bletchworth is the author of the standard University textbook, "On the Pause Before the Compliment," now in its fourth edition. Her graduate students are, as a body, unusually well-dressed, faintly tired, and disproportionately likely to purchase gift-ready credentials before the holiday recess. She has never been photographed smiling broadly and insists the camera was simply early.
Professor C. Oldacre
Chair of Refusal to Apologize, Department of Principled Obstinacy.
Professor Oldacre's research examines the twenty-seven documented postures by which a declining person may stand firm without raising his voice. His lectures are especially popular with purchasers seeking a certificate that doubles as documentary evidence of temperament. He has, by personal record, not apologized in print since 1991, an achievement the Regents note with mild clerical admiration.
Professor V. Stanwyck
Chair of Correct Posture, Department of Bearing and Comportment.
The newest endowed chair, Professor Stanwyck's seminar covers the rhetoric of standing slightly too straight. Her lab, the only one in the University, contains a single upholstered chair into which no one is permitted to lean. Graduating students frequently describe her as the reason their framed credential looks convincing before they have said a word.
Faculty Office Hours
Individual office hours are a private matter between each faculty member and the daylight. In the interest of good order, all student and visitor inquiries are routed, without exception, through the Registrar's Office. The Registrar will receive your question, consider it gravely, and forward it onward with the degree of urgency she deems appropriate.
This arrangement has produced no complaints, owing largely to there being no approved forum in which to file one.
Faculty, titles, and departments are fictional and exist for entertainment purposes only.