29 Comments
Bwog likes reprinting emails from admin. Especially wholly noxious ones. We are watching you.
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:03:53 -0500
From: Michael Mallick <mgm3@columbia.edu>
Subject: failures to deliver senior essays to sponsors
To: seniorenglishessaywriters@columbia.edu
It seem quite a number of you — this year’s senior essayists — did not follow the instructions clearly set out with regard to the distribution of your final essay. One copy of the essay is to go to your sponsor (you either deliver it to your sponsor in person or leave it in your sponsor’s mailbox); you also deposit 4 copies of your essay in the English Department (these copies go to the 4 members of the undergraduate committee — CUE). In the past couple of days, as many as half of the essay sponsors arrived in 602 telling us they never received a copy of their sponsee’s essay.
Were you under the mistaken impression that one of those 4 copies would be delivered to your sponsor? If so, this result reflects poorly on your ability to read closely and comprehend rather simply directives (no insult intended here, naturally); the senior essay web page clearly asks that you give your sponsor one copy of the essay to your sponsor and four to the CUE.
If you did not give your sponsor a copy of your essay, you should do so immediately: if I were one of you who were in this way remiss, I’d email my sponsor posthaste, ask how best to get a copy in his or her hands (personal delivery, email attachment, messenger service, whatever). Your sponsor is supposed to have read and graded your essay by Monday morning, at which time your grade and a recommendation re honors (that you either receive honors or not — though the CUE makes the final decision). Without sufficient time to read your essay — especially if your sponsor plans to be out of town this weekend — it is possible that your failure to follow directions will result in your failure to receive honors, perhaps a failure to receive a writing prize, perhaps even a failure in the course. I urge you to act immediately. I further urge you not to email me — I am merely relaying a message on behalf of a number of perplexed faculty.
I do not have the time to respond to individual protestations, rationalizations, fantastic explanations, and the like. If you feel you must vent some misguided feeling of having been somehow led astray, then please direct your arguments to Prof. Rosenthal. I am too busy at the moment preparing materials for the fall semester to deal with this mess, which is not, in any case, my responsibility. I am acting solely now as a messenger, not a judge, nor am I an arbitrator. If you’ve taken offense at my straightforward tone, apologies — I’m as befuddled as your sponsors at your failure to comply with uncomplicated directives; unlike your sponsors, I have no interest in any explanations — it is to your sponsors and, if you wish, Prof. Rosenthal that you should speak. But I’d save the breath and act fast instead.
MM
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29 Comments
@Remiss Essayist HAHA I am sooo glad bwog posted this. probably the craziest e-mail I’ve ever gotten from an administrator! and he was so off. Here’s the sentence of instruction from the department web page:
“The manuscript must be completed by Monday, April 9, 2007, with one copy for the sponsor and four copies for CUE in 602 Philosophy.”
Michael has a lot of pent-up energy though, clearly.
@Jumping the gun... You guys are fucking idiots. Try reading the directions yourself rather than assuming you know what you’re talking about. One would almost think YOU were English majors. Har har.
@hmmm So, if anyone would like to go take a look at the senior essay page he is looking at, they will note that the sentence is entirely ambiguous! Mr. Genius dept. admin should know that the “in the office” could modify both to the advisors and the professors. The essay writers did the right thing if they turned in all the copies to the front desk, and the English guy that wrote this should have his grammar checked before putting this on a website.
@How's this M – G – M three = is a filthy he-she
@What a Dick What’s to gain by writing such a harsh e-mail? Why not just remind everyone that they really have to send a copy to their sponsors?
Negative reinforcement rarely works, and especially in cases where it’s coming from some unhappy jackass who works at in an English Department.
@CHECK THIS! mallick is a phallic.
@spoiled english i didn’t mind mallick’s tone in the email – i only minded that he sent it to everyone, including people who’d read the instructions correctly. booo
@columbia as usual it’s columbia students who are the spoiled, useless, dumb, babyish idiots who like to displace the blame for their own incompetence on some scape-goat. and while I did end up dropping the english major FAST, i’ve generally found mallick really helpful and useful.
@yay CUE’s taking over the world!
@sev I feel allergic just looking at that photo
@Battle of DeptAdmins JP Janowski could whip his ass.
@what a jackass.
@C. Havemeyer III indeed! why, lionel trilling would have never put up with the neediness of to-day’s college lad. a rap with the ruler for him, I say!
@Ivy pretentious posthaste.
@Wow - I didn’t know John Hodgman worked in our English department!
@awesome love it.
@haha He’s the Paris Gellar of admins. He need to swallow a Valium and simma down.
@mallick is a good guy. shut the fuck up.
@Mal-ICK! Name one good thing that useless stooge has done besides send mildly amusing threatening e-mails
@MGM3 Ole MGM3 has spammed me with many an irate message. Fuck that guy. He’s a tool.
@englishmajor Professors most likely got in touch with their idiot advisees who didn’t read the directions, complaining that they received no directions (which, btw, is false. they received directions once). Consequently, Michael was probably blamed en masse by scape-goating english majors trying to get off the hook. I don’t see how that makes him a cat’s ass hole. If anything Columbia’s typically self-infantilizing students are. But what’s new.
@fwafwafwa “this result reflects poorly on your ability to read closely and comprehend rather simply directives”
“the senior essay web page clearly asks that you give your sponsor one copy of the essay to your sponsor and four to the CUE.”
Let’s hope that these grammatical mistakes were caused by his attempts to deal with his own uncontrollable rage while writing this email, rather than a reflection of some greater problem with his English language skills…
@hahaha some English majors just got their balls served to them on a silver platter. Sometimes reading between the lines, in the margins and between the pages is not QUITE as useful as reading the actual lines.
@Oh Please He’s right, English Majors should be able to read a handful of goddamn words and turn in their boring papers. I think the tone is just right. Not harsh enough to set the Sensitive Squad running for Papa Bollinger, but angry enough to make these morons realize they’re idiots. Mallick is just tired of moronic English majors giving the department a bad name. Clean house muthafuckah!
@cats do have balls. thanks for the pic bwog. i always wondered that.
@cat balls just check out the rear of the lion statue near dodge for further proof…
does anyone remember when someone painted the lion’s balls blue and white? time for a reprise.
@lol he works at a desk in the English office – complex? anyone?
@wtf what a complete total fucking douchebag.
typical columbia admin.
@wow this guy sucks.