More ethical lapses in Lincolnland.

This comes as no surprise to long time residents of our great state, but it appears that political influence has been playing a large role in the admission process at Lincolnland U. Go, LULU, Go! Yes, it seems that students who lack the academic credentials still get admitted to LU if they have political pull, and of course, it isn’t the faculty allow this to happen. It’s the high mucky-mucks who insinuate that those dastardly faculty grade too easy. This is even worse than legacies who at least had the decency to have had well educated, and almost always well heeled parents. I mean how else do you explain W at Yale?

This all brings to mind that famous scene in Tom Cruise’s best movie ever, Risky Business. After being told his record isn’t quite up to Ivy League standards, Joel says, “Looks like it’s LULU!” Or something to that effect. But you know, this isn’t the ivy league out here in Lincolnland, so I’m not sure what the big deal is, other than it takes the edge off the idea that when you're a LULU you are part of some sort of elite student body, one which by definition is more prestigious than Some Other State U. no matter how you perform. Sorry folks, it's just a big corn college.

So what does the Phactor do about all this? Well, my approach is to even the playing field. Yes, they all end up in the same classroom, and part of my job is to set the bar high enough to figure out which ones should be entrusted with taking out our gall bladders and teaching biology to our kids, and which ones should switch majors to communications. So no matter how they were admitted, they have to go through the Phactor Philter.

Only once did a student ever try to pull rank by telling me, "My Mother is a very important person." "No kidding", says I, "then I bet she did better than this when she took biology." "What say we talk to her about your work ethic?" That student had a major league back pedal.