“The pleasure is mine,” Frazier said. He sported a blazer and rep tie, perfectly knotted. “And aren’t we supposed to be saying freshperson, or something?”
“Wait, we have a historian?” Shelley asked.
“It’s first-year now,” Lulu said. “The word fresh targets us for sexual violence. I got a pamphlet. It’s all there.”
“A pamphlet! How wonderful!” Win clapped his hands. “You must bring us one. One has so much trouble keeping up with the nomenclature.” He laughed, imagining he had made a particularly clever bon mot. “Anyway, Frazier here is, in fact, the society’s historian. I thought he might give you the sordid details.”
Frazier liked few things more than talking about Fellinghams. “I will go back to the beginning. Our little island of civility was founded nine years ago by—”
“Hold on, you sure you can keep track of all that history, Frazier? I mean, nine years…”
“Shut up, Shel, you harpy!” Win blurted. “It’s important for any organization to have institutional memory.”
“Okay, I’ll be good. Do go on.” Shelley smiled and sipped her Pimm’s.
“The Society of Fellingham,” Frazier continued, “was founded nine years ago by Sir Alexander Hargrove. A freshman at the time, he found the university’s social options lacking, at least for one as he, born of the British aristocracy. The society was named for Hargrove’s direct ancestor Lord Herbert Fellingham, the second Marquess of Fellingham, who lived in the seventeenth century and was a prominent supporter of James the Second. Sir Alex was a traditional monarchist, you see, and the society’s mission statement asserts that we will strive to reinstate the primacy of monarchic rule, and that America, in particular, should be returned to the monarchic fold. Also, there should be many formal affairs with free-flowing alcohol.”
“Long live the queen!” shouted Win, High Scepter.
All in the room stopped what they were doing. Raising their Pimm’s, they shouted back, “Long live the queen!” Lulu sensed it was a thing.
Frazier continued, “The scepter was chosen as our symbol, and you can see our sacred scepter, handed down through generations of Hargroves, hanging over the mantelpiece. It’s quite priceless.”
Shelley snorted.
Frazier just ignored her. “Sir Alex decreed that only students who were members of the aristocracy could join, but he soon discovered this meant Fellinghams would have a membership of two, himself and Ahmed Farooq. Ahmed was the grandnephew of the deposed shah of Iran, so he was a fellow traveler, aristocratically speaking. Farooq’s family had been chased from the family seat by street mobs during the revolution, but he still qualified. Ahmed aside, though, Sir Alex was distraught to learn that he had arrived in something of an aristocratic wasteland.”
“He did know he was in, like, America, right?” Lulu asked.
“That’s not entirely clear. By all accounts he was intoxicated for most of his six years here, and he may not have technically graduated. Pembroke College at Cambridge had been the family’s scholastic seat for centuries, but they say Sir Alex couldn’t settle on a subject of study, which makes admission at Cambridge problematic, as was the fact he may or may not have written ‘Bugger off’ as the response to one of his A Level essay questions. We believe he chose Devon because it’s the closest approximation to Oxford or Cambridge, what with our Gothic spires and house system. But some details of the story are lost in the mists of time.”
“He graduated three years ago,” Shelley offered, being helpful, as always.
“Anyway, Sir Alex decided to grant admittance to others who could at least act with the appropriate social graces, and Fellinghams was founded with nineteen initial members. They had no house, of course, and held meetings at the residence of a former professor, one who professed to be an Anglophile. Regrettably, it turned out he was also a predatory homosexual, which made it necessary to seek other arrangements. A year later, Sir Alex set his eyes on this very edifice. Lacking sufficient funds for the purchase, as his family was some three generations removed from anything resembling actual wealth, he persuaded his now close friend Ahmed to foot the bill. Ahmed’s family had managed to escape Iraq with Swiss bank accounts of considerable health, you see, so it was a small matter.”
“To the damn Persian!” Win cried.
“To Ahmed!” answered everyone.
“So, how goes it with the whole monarchy thing?” Lulu asked, suppressing a giggle.
“Splendidly,” Win answered. “We’re having a party to celebrate Prince Harry’s birthday next month. Perhaps you might attend.”
“Huzzah!” Frazier cried, in apparent agreement.
Someone turned the music up, and the night became a blur of alcohol, toasts, and slightly loosened neckties. In the fullness of the evening, Win removed the scepter from the mantel and led a march around the living room, waving the scepter from side to side like a drum major. Each time the line passed the bar, a shot of whiskey was all but required. Presently, it was decided that food was an urgent requirement, and so Win led a small parade to Gino’s Pizza down the block, everyone singing “That Gay Old Devon That I Love” along the way. Five pies were ordered in high-Elizabethan English from Gino, otherwise known as “my good man.”
Gino didn’t mind—this wasn’t the first time. But he did wonder about the university now and then.
* * *
Shelley and Lulu walked back to campus in somewhat less than straight lines, clutching each other for support and giggling as they went. Lulu deliberately mangled a few lines of “Rule, Britannia!,” another of the evening’s standards.
“Don’t take them too seriously. They’re harmless. Win’s from New Jersey!”
“The High Scepter of Hackensack?” Lulu laughed hysterically.
“It’s all in good fun.”
“You don’t have to convince me. Those are the first people I’ve liked since I got here, and that incluudes the people I’ve had sex with.” They both laughed hysterically, swerving under the wrought-iron gates to East Quad. They paused while Lulu took a double selfie, which she posted to Instagram with a click.
The inscription over the gate, which few ever took note of, read UNA CRESCIMUS.
Together We Grow.
October
The English Department
ONCE A MONTH, the English Department had an all-hands meeting. Generally, about forty people attended these, including teaching assistants and a visiting writer or two. Eph and his colleagues crowded into one of the larger spare classrooms in Grafton. Sunlight bathed the room through the arched, leaded-glass windows.
Devon’s many architectural details, particularly the Gothic ones, lent the campus a feeling of timelessness, even if it was all a bit of a conceit. Most of the buildings that appeared centuries old were actually built in the 1930s, but that feeling of permanence was just what the architects at the time were reaching for. Instant Oxbridge, just add stone and mortar. Conceit or not, it worked, leaving Devon’s residents feeling part of something that had been here long before and would remain long after.
While no one, perhaps in the entire history of academia, would ever lay claim to liking faculty meetings, Eph came closer than most. They were a reminder, much like the architecture, of just where he was. With professors still filing in, he imagined the road not taken. (Okay, sure, Frost was a cliché, but Eph had a soft spot for the craggy Vermonter.) In Eph’s case, that road would have involved riding a John Deere, back and forth, back and forth.
Titus Cooley, chair of the English Department, leaned back against the desk at the head of the classroom. On the north side of seventy, he had a genetically furrowed brow set above impossibly bushy eyebrows. His weathered face was like a tan-and-pink watercolor that someone had left out in the rain.
“Okay, let’s get on with it. We have a few items to cover today. First, the department heads all met with President Strauss yesterday. We covered a variety of issues, but I wanted to bring some to your attention. I’m sure y
ou’re all familiar with the website Rate My Professor.”
A groan issued forth. The site was widely loathed in academic circles. Rate My Professor let students anonymously rate their teachers, and most professors secretly hated any form of transparency. (Devon, like every other college, kept its official student course ratings under strict lock and key.) Rate My Professor rewarded easy graders and contributed, in the view of many, to grade inflation. That the site had recently added a teacher “hotness” ranking didn’t help, either.
Titus raised his voice above the moaning. “As you may be aware, the site allows users to rate professors on a scale of one to five. Anyone can rate any professor. No actual proof that the rater attended the class, or even attended the school, is required. Furthermore, most professors have small sample sizes, thus not meeting the requirements for statistical significance. For these reasons, the university has decided to issue a statement condemning the site in the strongest possible terms.”
“Here! Here!” The room vigorously approved. Eph tried not to look at the site much, but he knew most teachers, including himself, secretly couldn’t resist the occasional peek. His own 4.4 rating was well above Devon’s 3.6 average. The sample size was only eighteen, so it didn’t mean much, but it gave him some satisfaction nonetheless. He liked to imagine people back in Ashley had seen it, somehow, but knew it was unlikely.
“Furthermore,” continued Titus, “there have been some rather unpleasant occurrences at other schools. Teachers colluding to rate each other, or even rating themselves. That sort of thing. It goes without saying that such shenanigans here at Devon would result in severe disciplinary measures. I’m going to assume that this isn’t going to be a problem.”
There was a murmur of agreement.
“Moving on, we will be hiring a new assistant professor. I have emailed you the curricula vitae of the candidates should you have any feedback. Interviews begin next week.… Lastly—”
“Excuse me, Professor.”
It was Sophie Blue Feather. Poetry. Arrived at Devon last year with full tenure, which was rare. Everyone quietly assumed she was Native American, but to Eph she looked white as Titus Cooley. Was he the only one who noticed? He knew better than to ask.
“Professor Blue Feather,” Titus said.
Blue Feather rose out of her seat. “It appears that all the candidates you sent us are cisgender. I urge the department in the strongest possible terms to increase its LGBT representation, particularly trans. It is imperative that we break the heteronormative paradigm.”
Now there’s a mouthful, thought Eph. Professor Blue Feather herself was a self-described pangenderist. She cut a striking figure, fortyish, with severe black-rimmed glasses and a pixie haircut died Smurf blue. When Eph first met her, she came right out and said, “Yes, I’m pangender.” It was a challenge; as if she could read his thoughts, thoughts that just may be squirmed uncomfortably in the presence of anyone whose sexuality didn’t adhere to traditional boundaries. She was daring him to say something. All he could manage was to look exactly like a deer in the headlights.
Maybe it was because he didn’t know what the heck a pangenderist was. Wasn’t pansexual a thing, too? Later, in private, he had turned to Google and discovered a robust palette of gender options, each with its own unique flag. Facebook, for instance, allowed users to choose from fifty-eight, although he frequently found the definitions confusing. For instance, he couldn’t see that there was a difference between an androgyne and an hermaphrodite. For that matter, how was something called neither a gender, and why was it different from other, and why was there both cisgender woman and cisgender female? And wasn’t a two-spirit just a gay Indian? Eph imagined some faceless social force conjuring up nuanced gender alternatives behind the scenes.
Pangender, he discovered, described people who embodied all genders within themselves. All fifty-eight? How did they decide what to wear in the morning? And just to make sure he had things straight, a pansexual was someone who liked getting busy with the other fifty-seven. Eph wasn’t sure he knew any pansexuals, but they must be popular at parties.
“Uh, cisgender?” Titus asked, looking as though he immediately regretted asking.
“That would be you, Professor,” said Sophie Blue Feather, pangenderist. The room broke out in laughter, although Blue Feather’s expression didn’t change.
“Ah, so you mean … normal?”
There were audible gasps. He’d used the N-word. The other one. “We don’t say normal, Professor,” Blue Feather said.
“Er, right, because I suppose that would imply, if one thought it through, that others were, uh…”
“Abnormal. Yes, Professor.”
“I see … yes … right. We will look into your request, Professor, although if I’m not mistaken, HR takes somewhat of a dim view on raising matters of, uh, sexual identity in the hiring process.”
“That’s why you need to involve more LGBTIAQ members of the faculty in that process.”
“Well, yes, certainly, as I said, we’ll look into it.”
Poor Titus was doing his best to keep up with the cultural tides, but the tides were moving faster than a man of his age could swim.
“Our last item,” he continued, “is this business of ‘trigger warnings,’ which, as you know, is a topic of much discussion both nationally and here at Devon. The university has formed a new committee with representatives from every department to frame a policy, and I have asked Professor Smallwood to represent the English Department. Professor, would you please come say a few words?”
Toes! Eph sank in his chair, trying to decipher this development. Toes fashioned himself as the consummate outsider, a radical who paid no deference to the Man, yet here he was, chairing some new committee. Was Toes playing an inside game? At least Titus wasn’t winking at him. Christ, stop reading into everything.
Eph wasn’t averse to playing the “game” in the name of his career, at least to a point, but the subtle undercurrents of departmental politics often eluded him. The abstruse meaning behind two-centuries-old literary prose? No problem. The politics of a twenty-first-century English department? Farm life had not trained him for that.
Toes made his way to the front. Squish squish squish.
“May I suggest,” Titus said, “that if you are triggered by the appearance of unusual footwear, you may wish to avert your eyes.” The room once again erupted in laughter. Old Cooley occasionally wielded a dry wit to great effect.
“Thank you, Professor Cooley,” said Toes, now beet red. “We are called the Committee on Safe and Open Classrooms. Picking up on what Professor Blue Feather said, our Devon community grows ever more diverse, and we must take care not to marginalize those who may not feel completely comfortable here. We need to remember this was a university built by white men for other white men with no consideration given to the ‘other.’ We still live with the echoes of that discrimination.”
Toes sounded like he’d memorized this, Eph thought.
“If you consider the Americans with Disabilities Act, it was meant to provide accessibility to differently abled people. In a similar way, trigger warnings, which we prefer to call content warnings, are meant to provide accessibility to the classroom for all, ensuring a safe environment. Studies show—”
“Excuse me.” Everyone turned. It was Fred Hallowell, sitting in the back. English playwrights.
“Uh, yes, Professor Hallowell.”
“You can call me Fred.”
“Fred, certainly.”
“Are there many injuries in the classroom?”
“Sorry?”
“Injuries. Are there many.”
“I don’t understand.” Toes suddenly looked like he’d ingested one too many turmeric balls at Blue Nation.
“Well, you said you’re trying to make classrooms safe, and I’m trying to figure out why they’re dangerous.” There was an uneasy murmuring, not all of it sympathetic to where Hallowell was going.
“Not all violence is
physical!” Sophie Blue Feather cried.
“Oh, well, yes,” Toes said. “Professor Blue Feather is correct. We are not addressing physical dangers, per se, but rather psychological ones, which can be every bit as harmful. For instance, a victim of sexual assault, whom we term a survivor, can easily become distraught if exposed to passages in books like To Kill a Mockingbird or poems like The Waste Land. Books like The Great Gatsby can trigger those who have been victims of domestic violence. It is our duty as a school to protect our students from emotional trauma.”
“By treating them like precious little dandelions?”
“Well, no, of course not. But as stewards of an institution that has been guilty of systemic oppression, it is our duty to make sure that we do everything we can to promote inclusiveness. No one who comes here should feel marginalized.”
Hallowell was having none of it. “So we are censors now?”
“Looking after the safety of our students is not censorship, Professor!” Blue Feather said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Toes agreed. “While the committee hasn’t come up with a set of guidelines yet, we hope to avoid outright censorship in favor of anticipatory warnings.”
“Hooray for us!” Hallowell pumped his fist in the air. “Incidentally, who decides what gets a trigger?”
“We plan to form another committee to determine that in the coming months.” (Eph had often noted it took almost nothing at Devon to necessitate the formation of a committee.) “We have tentatively created a series of seventeen guiding—”
“I think we’ve got the gist, Professor,” interrupted Titus, looking to end the discussion before it went further downhill. Hallowell was tenured, and he sometimes used his untouchable status to roil the departmental waters. No waters were more easily disturbed. “The directive on this comes from President Strauss himself, so we can all look forward to a comprehensive policy later this year.”
Eph thought he could hear the faintest trace of sarcasm in Titus’s voice.
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