And not least, Professor Smullion.
Why “and not least” for him? Had Smullion published another Biology for Babies book?
[……] I thereby declare this meeting of the Whittlebauer Ethics Committee to be in session. Palfrey had a manila folder that he now opened. Miss Hazlet, would you do the committee the favor of keeping its notes?
I shall be happy to, Miss Hazlet responded, but she gave her paper tablet a skeptical look.
Well you can record that our members are all present and prompt. Miss Hazlet wore a blouse covered with small green (leaping, were they?) leaflike abstractions. Her fingers scrambled for the pencil and the pad.
President Palfrey let his eyes rove, assuming the domination of the room. When this committee meets, he said, it is always a most serious occasion, since, here at Whittlebauer, ethical problems rarely arise. We have our by-laws for most issues firmly in place so that normally we have but to consult them. [……] We have, however, in my tenure here, and as well as my memory serves, never had a case like this one, and that is something we can be grateful for and proud of. When we hire new faculty our procedures are thorough and severe. Each of you, at some point in the past, has undergone them.
What about … Professor Skizzen thought, while watching Palfrey like a mouse a hawk. He once more observed that Miss Hazlet had a blouse bearing leaflike figures (on the run?). This wasn’t tracking Palfrey as a mouse does a hawk. Run, that’s what a mouse would do. Find a slice of light beneath a door and vanish with the light when the light fled.
It seems, however, that, concerning the situation before us, there has been a slipup, an instance in which we, needing help in an area, failed to meet our standards of scrutiny and care. Now this imbroglio is the result.
“Kit” Carson cleared his throat as if he were preparing to speak, but, of course, he wasn’t.
We can take our mistake to heart and learn. That’s what the college is for, isn’t it? Palfrey laughed rather openly, not, as was his custom, with one hand held girlishly in front of his face. We thought we had found what seemed to be a simple, very handy, solution. Instead we let our standards slip. So now we must decide what to do.
Smullion looked perplexed. So he wasn’t in on it. Smullion had a suspiciously fancy CV, himself.
Dean Funk opened a dossier. The color for dossiers was green. Where had that file folder come from? He hadn’t had it a moment ago. The color was an exact match for those things on Hazlet’s blouse. Now there were two folders on the table. Not a good sign. [……] The issue, in brief, is this: we hired to teach our students a man who provided us with an educational history that has proved false. We have it from Ames that no such person ever received any degrees from Iowa State let alone a doctorate. He was never even enrolled.
Good heavens, Skizzen thought, what does this have to do with him? Iowa State? Who was Ames? A secret informer? Or a city of some sort?
We felt we needed to offer geography. Kit Carson had intervened. We felt that without geography our seniors should not be released into the world. Fast trains, the superhighway, the airplane, have ruined geography. My students, Carson said, wouldn’t know where Ames was. For them, distance is minutes in the car or hours on the plane. Where is Belgrade, where is Vienna, where is Ames? They are next to their airport — two, six, seven hours from here.
Ah, now we are getting round to it. Vienna. Sneaky. Skizzen didn’t have a cup. Hazlet had picked hers up, but all of the cups were empty. Empty. What in the world?
So for them, the world is flat — car, plane, train, flat — Smullion said, not round, but flat, like the map says in the glove compartment.
We used to have a good softball team, but intramural play is too costly. We were supposed to play Rochester. As if it were another frat house, you know, next door. Mort’s pencil had been pressed, point first, through the side of his Styrofoam. Now he slowly removed it.
Had he a cup, he would have begun to crimp its rim. But no cup had been set for Skizzen. Not a good sign.
“Geography” doesn’t mean geography anymore, Carson said. It’s all about the cultural atmosphere of a place — who it is, not where. Its classes used to teach climate; they used to teach soil; they figured addresses — lat. & long. — for entire countries, on a ball made for soccer. Now the geographer doesn’t much care where rivers go or even what sort of boat sails on them. A barge of coal, salt, or ore. It cares, maybe, about how and when our rivers turned into canals, how they were made to behave — commit no floods in future. Oh, and they are interested in the people or organizations that profited from the traffic or who grew money from the former marsh that now sports corn.
Smullion wondered whether the committee was supposed to be deciding what geography ought to be.
I can tell you: it’s all about the anthropology of places, not the place of a place; not raindrop amounts but the numbers of men those drops wet. Once “location, location” referred to sunlight and water, elevation and soil, now it means subways, saloons, and schools. A verdant valley has no place until we turn it into a colony. What counts: whose colony is it, who lives there, how many miles of suburb can it boast?
So Carson, the way he was carrying on, must have been appointed to that hiring committee, Skizzen thought. But what was this all about? Flood control? That wouldn’t be a problem for Woodbine, Urichstown maybe. Ah … that’s it … that far back …
Clearly, President Palfrey said, we have someone in Professor Carson who could do the job, but he has kept his light buried beneath the basket. The president’s tone suggested that it was a little late for the history department to step in. But what happens now, when we have a fraud in the stirrups … I should say a fake in the firehouse … a cheat in the chapel … that’s it, a cheat in the chapel.
What did he do, exactly? Brave Mort asked this question.
He misrepresented his qualifications. Wildly.
Who?
Hursthouse, of course. Who else does geography?
Do we do geography?
Part-time.
Why would he want to teach geography part-time?
To wear the honorable colors of the school.
You joke. What a courageous fellow Mort was, Professor Skizzen decided.
Not for a moment. It is an honor, I say, to teach here. Don’t you think it is an honor?
He owns the furniture store.
That’s somebody named Leonard.
Hursthouse bought him out.
The fat guy?
Why would we hire someone so heavy he has to have help getting around?
We are an equal opportunity employer.
You are thinking about the shoe store.
Part-time is hardly opportunity.
What about the shoe store?
How long has he been on the mound?
What?
Pitch — teaching. When did he start?
Three years ago. Three years of shame. On us.
All we can do is fire him.
That damned newspaper will love this.
All the Styrofoam cups had been damaged beyond use by this time, Skizzen noticed. He’d never have one of his own. You could draw on the side with your fingernail. His blood was slowly returning to him. What a dastardly deed, he said amid the hubbub. Skizzen trusted no one, and nothing is what he should have said.
We look bad, whatever we do.