Editor’s Note: The following is a work of satire based on the events described in the Issue 09 article, “Wilcox takes heat from students in public forum.”
Running a corporation non-profit university can be difficult, especially when students constantly challenge your closed-door decisions and racially insensitive statements at every turn. With this in mind, and following in the tradition of administrative bloat system-wide, the Chancellor has announced the creation of two new administrative positions to alleviate these problems and make the Chancellor feel more welcome at UCR. We sat down with him to get his take on the new positions.
1. Assistant Vice Chancellor (AVC) for Spiritual Advisement and Charitable Donations
Responsibilities: This AVC position requires a sense of team spirit and experience with 1) yoga instruction to decrease the Chancellor’s propensity to rudely stomp away from students when they don’t just passively sit down and listen to his propaganda, 2) hypnotism to make the Chancellor feel safe when cops aren’t stationed at the doors of Hinderaker Hall to keep students out, 3) administration of reiki before events to make sure he “has his notes in order” on his phone and isn’t ignoring students when being directly addressed by them, and finally 4) spiritual guidance on how to administer charitable donations for maximum smoke-and-mirrors effect.
“I expect students to be thankful for my charity in the form of scholarship donations to the university, which somehow are supposed to alleviate my ridiculously high pay and recent raise and absolve me from righting this injustice,” Wilcox told this reporter. “My donations show I care about students, and I encourage them to give feedback about these new positions.” Wilcox made several promises in this regard, pointing to what he called his “student feedback container,” which looked suspiciously like a garbage bin.
2. Assistant Vice Consigliere (AVC) of Graph and Chart Creation, Apologies, and Propaganda
Responsibilities: This organized go-getter should have crisis PR experience. First duties when assuming this position include the creation of a hotel for undocumented students that provides affordable housing and accepts meal plans, in response to earlier comments that the university “isn’t a hotel” and as an elaborate way to avoid apologizing for a statement he couldn’t recall making. Other primary activities will involve the creation of Power Points that attempt to convince students that the state is solely to blame for financial woes and tuition hikes. Finally, this person should be experienced at coopting class- and race-based rhetoric about the UC’s history of free education in order to make his arguments.
“Students aren’t numbers,” Wilcox said of this job description. “But wow,” he continued, “Look at this pretty chart that allows me to make it look like education shouldn’t be free and it’s not my fault!”
When asked how these two new positions would affect the budget, Wilcox explained that he was creating a third position in the Library with donation money that should have gone elsewhere in order to assess the budget impact.
“I think these positions will be a great opportunity for stress relief for the Chancellor,” Sophomore in Political Science Antonia Fuginaga said. “Perhaps it will make him less inclined to be incredibly rude to students and act like a politician when faced with a request for an apology.”
Graduate Student Amy Goodmann had a similar reaction. “Maybe we should apply these positions to all 10 campuses! I mean, Napolitano could probably use an Assistant Vice Sub-Dean for Student Amnesia and Image Rejuvenation, to figure out clever ways to make us forget that she spent her last career deporting the family members of students, and that she’s really just doing the best she can!”
