The Standards Of Genuine Scholarship

Well, time to go. She collected her possessions, locked the door of her office, and headed down the stairs. She continued her meditations as she walked. Yes, it was best that Lester left. Indeed, she had wondered if he ever was going to get the message that he wasn’t wanted. She had sent his dissertation back a dozen times, now. And he still kept turning in re-writes. Was he really so dense as to not get the message? At least, not until now?

Apparently. He was a dim sort of a man, it seemed. She made the inevitable Women’s Studies joke about all men being dim. But, then, there was still something . . . troubling … about the whole affair.

She felt no guilt about her role in the business. If anything, she was proud. It was the distasteful but necessary duty of a genuine scholar to Maintain The Standards Of Genuine Scholarship.

But, still, she felt a little bewildered by Lester’s failure to submit to her directives, and to understand her . . . well . . . her intellectual dominance. She had explained to him, again and again, that his work wasn’t good. That he did things wrong. That “We Don’t Do Things That Way In the Academy.”

It never occurred that her that what she actually meant was We didn’t do things that way at my college back in New York. It never occurred to her that anyone existed outside the tiny circle around Spitter-Cane, a few of her colleagues, and the group of privileged graduate students who fought (ruthlessly) for her attention. It was a war that Putridrine had, herself, consistently won. No one was more grimly determined, more energetic, more willing to use any means to gain her professor’s approval. Even if, as it frequently did, it meant sabotaging the efforts . . . destroying the careers! . . . of others.

But . . . Lester . . .

She walked along the sidewalk to where she’d parked her car. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice the police cars and the ambulance until she was almost on them. Then, abruptly, she was facing the yellow tape and the brown uniforms of the police. What the hell?

A policeman was standing in front of her. “Please, ma’am, go back around the other way.”