Who’s the hottest dean that everyone forgot existed? This Bwogger has thoughts.

My dearest Dean Shih-Fu Chang,

First of all, congratulations on your well-deserved appointment to the Deanship. You were already kind of the Dean, but now you’re like the Forever Dean instead of the Interim Dean, and I’m relieved because I didn’t know what I was going to do next year without your strong, silent presence.

I know you’re probably getting used to feeling like everyone forgets about you. Whenever I tell my Columbia College and Barnard friends about you, they all ask “Who’s that?” The Varsity Show completely forgot that you existed. But you’ll have your day in the sun, Dean Chang.

You’re not showy—you know what you have to say. Your emails are sentences, not paragraphs. You don’t have time to write long, winding emails about current events. You’re the kind of man who rolls up his sleeves and gets back to the lab to research human trafficking prevention. One of your grad students interviewed me last year to be a research assistant in your lab—I did not get the job after they found out I had taken no upper-level CS classes. But still, we both know him. So that’s something.

You’re such a silver fox—salt and pepper hair, kind eyes, always in a suit. There’s something authoritative about you too, like “I know how a computer works, but I’m not telling”. It’s so sexy. People are incredulous when I tell them you’re the hottest dean. I don’t think it’s personal, though; I think it’s because I share this information without anyone asking. “Dean Chang is the hottest dean and no one is talking about it,” is one of my favorite topics of conversation. Sure, other people try to chime in—they pull up a picture of you, and they all ask “that guy?”, stupified. “He’s hotter in person,” I say like I’m a girl defending her boyfriend that looks like a rat.

I’ve only seen you three times, all at my work. Each time my boss says you’re coming in, I sit up straighter behind the front desk. I stop playing on my phone and pull up my comp sci assignment, so you know I’m like, a woman in STEM. When you unlock the door with your master key, I beam at you and say hi. You say hi back. You’re such a man of the people. A real man. Not like that tool, PrezBo. He would totally not say hi back.

I hate that the Varsity Show didn’t even mention you. Three hours of sitting in Roone and I don’t even get a little nod to the sultriest administrator on campus? Fuck the Varsity Show. Next year, I’ll sign up to write the Varsity Show, and it’ll be all about you. 

I’ll make it a rapping musical about your life, called Chang. I’ll send you an invitation for your own box in Roone, and we’ll sit there together. After the show, everyone will beg for your autograph, and everyone will recognize you as the sex symbol that you are. After PrezBo sees the show, he’ll recognize that you deserve to be Columbia’s next president, and he’ll immediately resign. You’ll become PrezChang, and the world will finally know your name.

Until then, I’ll be sitting at the front desk. I’ll be the girl who’s googling how to write a for loop in Python for the third time this week.

Dean Chang via Columbia Engineering