By Brigid Pfeifer
Have you ever complained about the time it takes for a professors to give you your grade? Have you had to wait a week? Three months? A whole semester?
Students, put your complaints aside. The Bardvark recently discovered the plight of a long-time alumnus, and your paltry worries simply don’t compare.
Harold Brown was a senior at the College in 1956 when took his final distribution requirement, “The Philosophy of Addition: Why Does 2 Plus 2 Equal 4?” When Mr. Brown received his transcript a few weeks after graduation, he found the space next to Philosophy of Addition conspicuously blank. Mr. Brown immediately called the Registrar’s office, but they were unperturbed by his concerns. “We have a rather busy schedule ahead of us,” they told him. “If you’re not a current or incoming student, please just take a hike. We recommend the nearby Tivoli Bays. Do watch out for Lyme Disease!”
Brown did not share the Registrar’s blasé attitude towards the missing crite sheet. Because his final grade at Bard was unconfirmed, Harold Brown was forced to put the rest of his life on hold. He never completed his application to Yale Law. He broke off his engagement to his college sweetheart after she complained about his refusal to grow up. His only friends have been the staff of the Hotel Tivoli, where he has been a resident since the late 1960s. He even retained his old college job as a barback at the Traghaven for decades on end.
It seemed like Harold Brown was never going to escape this post-graduate purgatory until this past weekend. The Office of Registrar sent him a two-page missive letter. On the first page, Mr. Brown found a shocking F letter grade for the course; a note from the impossibly aged professor Nathan Sloth claimed: “I’d be damned if you know what 1 plus 1 equals.” The second page was a letter from Peter Gadsby. He apologized for the delay, but admitted that every fifty years or so, a Bardian’s life is trapped in limbo because of a missing grade. Mr. Brown was then given permission from Mr. Gadsby to retake his final distribution requirement in the fall, on the condition that he paid full tuition.
At press time, Mr. Brown was spotted at Traghaven, summoning up the courage to ask for an advance.
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