UC Irvine 92697
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Full-time graduate required fees:
In State: $7,400
Out of state: $7,667
Percent of applicants admitted: 60
Male: 7,956
Female: 10,033
Cumulative SAT scores (at the 25th and 75th percentile): 1100/1300
Receiving financial aid: 70 percent
Non-resident alien: 1,533
Black: 501
Hispanic: 2,568
Asian: 10,535
White: 6,644
Other: 2,563
Average full-time faculty salary (men): $90,098
Average full-time faculty salary (women): $73,033
Are people nice there? Nicest ever!
And so UC Irvine has a brand new pub! And it is awesome! It is awesome in that, after a late-afternoon Tuesday/Thursday class, there are more professors in there than students! Because professors love to hang out and shoot the shit! And drink fine beer! Yay, professors! Of which I am one!
Now, I’m not actually a professor—that would be one of those full-time dealies as seen above, where the ladies average $17,055 a year less than their penised counterparts—I’m a lecturer. That means I don’t have to have a doctorate or even a master’s; I just have to have real-life experience in the place that is the real world and know stuff about things of political science. Which, just so you know, I totally do. Also, it helps that the poli sci chair is totally in love with me, as men in their 50s are wont to be.
Abramoff
deLay
And so this quarter, I’m teaching “Conspiracy, Cover-Ups and the Press,” as opposed to two quarters ago, when I taught “Politics, Scandal and the Press,” because those are things I know stuff about! But especially things about stuff that are scandalous. For instance! If a student asked me, but what about Jack Abramoff? I would be all, “Oooh! Let me draw you a chart detailing his links to bad boys of Congress A, B, C, G and X. And here’s a little clip detailing the scum (water scum, not human scum) in the hot tub of Mr. Congressman DeLay! And never forget Bob Ney in Ohio!” Whereas if they ask me about a certain conspiracy or cover-up (as long as it’s not Iran-Contra), I’m all, “Huh. I dunno! But probably it was the CIA.”
And so Tuesday, when our class began, I had as swell a time as usual. “Sassy!” I barked at one of only two returning students (at least, returning to me) in the room, after a 12-minute diatribe during which somehow I’d lost my place. “What the hell was I talking about again?”
She reached back, way back, into the past for the answer. “The last time you saw Sheriff Carona,” she said.
“Then how did I get onto William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish American War?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” she giggled and said. Well, okay then. Remember the Maine!
I fucking love teaching; they can’t even leave!
the Maine
And then Thursday, when Sassy showed up drunk, I became a little intrigued. Why was she drunk? The pub was now open! She’d accidentally had four beers (four!), and we should go there after class. And so just a few of us did, and the kids talked about art history and the way the Bible, like sausage, was made. They talked about their chastity (some of them are keeping it!) while I tried to steer the subject away. These aren’t my kids; I can’t get totally inappropriate with them, even if in “Scandal” I did accidentally call Barbara Bush a cunt, which may be the most appropriate statement ever accidentally made. Out of order? She’s out of order! This whole court is out of order!
But I digress.
I am totally holding office hours in the pub from now on. Perhaps that way, over the course of a quarter, I might have at least one student come to see me and chat. Also, they play a lot of the Pogues.
rebecca@fourstory.org
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