Return to Sender (Red Emma)

We at Dissent the Blog see recent developments as an opportunity to embrace a lost art form, what with email and bloggery. It’s letter-writing time. See Chancellor Raghu Mathur’s own letter and be, well, inspired. Red Emma suggests getting out your own pen and some crisp leaves of “Hello Kitty” stationery and having at it. Helpfully, he includes below other exemplary letters — missives which not only model excellent correspondence behavior but, as is the tradition here at Dissent over the past thirteen years of the Mathur Regime, still manage to keep the pissed in epistolary. Remember, Dissenters, that the rhetorical secret to creating a really fine and effective letter involves, as Chancellor Mathur demonstrates in his own letter, capturing just the right tone, appropriate to the occasion. Here, then, six possible sample letters you might use in composing your own, just for the occasion. Postage not included. Friends, you gotta write ‘em to get ‘em! Occasion: Vacating Office

Dear Raghu: Thirty four years is a long time. It seems like only yesterday that you were starting your very first secret file, eavesdropping, skulking, collecting embarrassing photographs of board members. My, how time has flown. Please do let me know when you’d like to dismantle the electronic surveillance equipment and if you’ll be taking with you the portrait of Ronald Reagan hanging in front of the secret wall safe, and how you’d like staff to pack and ship the following: • Richard Nixon Snow Globe, with pumpkin patch, Checkers and a flurry of subpoenas. • Ronald Reagan jellybean dispenser (empty), in the shape of the island of Grenada. • The original four dollars and twenty five cents, in bills and coins, framed, which you carried in your pocket upon arriving in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. • Your collection of inspirational and motivational posters: Destiny, Motivation, Attitude, Strength, Pride, Duplicity and Excellent Bowel Movements. • The photograph of you with Jesus, autographed (by both of you) and inscribed, “What Would We Do?” and two smiley faces. (Gosh, I will always remember the occasion of his visit, and the personal tour you gave Him of the ATEP campus.) Like you, I have treasured every moment of working together, and look forward to my new position as Vice Chancellor of your online educational resource, Mathur’s Academy of Managementarian Success and, further, to helping write and edit your memoirs, The Ten Commandments of Highly Effective Effectors. Love, Your Secretary

Occasion: Return of Items

Dear Chancellor Mathur: Now that we’ve arranged your retirement, we are writing to thank you for the opportunity to have worked so closely with you and request that you return those, shall we say, special and confidential items you have so faithfully guarded and kept securely in your office safe, behind the photograph of Ronald Reagan, from the hands of reporters or our family members and which now, we imagine, will be of less use to you than in the past. We would also appreciate return of the negatives. Sincerely, SOCCCD Board

Occasion: Resignation (Personal)

Dear Mrs. Chancellor and all the little Chances: After a great deal of reflection and discussion with, well, everybody your husband and father sued or was sued by, slandered, blackballed, lied to, recommended for anger management counseling, made up totally fictional stories about and generally fucked with, I would like to thank you for the guidance you offered him and concur with — and wholeheartedly support! — your effort of reflection over, and helpful discussion of, the decision to choose now as, indeed, the ideal time for your father and husband (uncle and brother, nephew and family member), Mr. Raghu Mathur, to indeed consider and pursue his next professional challenge. As a strong believer in the importance of family, I am so very pleased that you will now have the opportunity to spend time with him. We’ve spent plenty, thank you. Collegially, A. Colleague

Occasion: Exploding courses

Dear Chancellor Raghu Mathur: Your recent communication has been made available to our office. It has come to our attention that your letter of resignation, while no doubt attempting to communicate your decision, also suggests a serious threat. With white powder packets mailed to professors and students dressed in camo gear roaming campuses while armed with paint ball guns, we ask that you avoid using adjectives which unnecessarily provoke an emergency situation, and cause alarm. As regards your sentence, “Online course offerings have exploded,” we feel it our job to point out that offerings cannot in fact explode. We are only security experts, but our terrific Composition teachers taught us that much. Please do take steps immediately to correct this egregious error in syntax and word choice, toward making our campuses, states, nation and world indeed a safer place and, in the future, find someone to proofread your work, whether in the remaining months of your employment -- its minutes ticking like a time bomb -- or in your next professional challenge. Sincerely, U.S. Department of Homeland Security cc: Saddleback College campus police

Occasion: State and National recognition

Dear Almost Ex-Chancellor Mathur: We at the district’s news clipping service will miss you. Indeed, your work as instructor, college president and district chancellor has kept us all mighty busy here. Boy, have we been busy. State and national recognition, you bet, but also regional, county and city. Whether threatening faculty or praising Jesus, supporting a Holocaust denier or subverting Shared Governance, leading meetings in prayer or enjoying a security stipend, we’ve got an impressive archives documenting your success at gaining recognition for our little district. Things have been a-hoppin here for us, with features and news stories in any number of news outlets, from alternative weeklies to mentions in columns in national news magazines, not to mention transcripts from radio and television reports. In the spirit of fiscal responsibility and management, we offer you now the opportunity to purchase, for a nominal contribution to the charity of our choice, in this case Americans United for Separation of Church and State, these one-of-a-kind documents, which we know you like to call The Raghu Mathur Presidential Papers. Staff (Anonymous) SOCCCD Public Relations

Occasion: Last Day in the Office

June 30 is a Wednesday. It is, according to my calendar, also the birthday of civil rights activist-actress-singer Lena Horne. And, in 2005, it’s when the nation of Spain recognized same-sex marriage. Synchroniticy! Kismet! ATEP! Your commitment to student study abroad in Santander, Spain, and your work for civil rights, including gay marriage and the advancement of women instructors who are smarter than you happily collide on this occasion. Throw in the War on Terror and, yes, it’s Raghur Mathur Homeland Celebration Day Pray-a-Thon and Flag Ceremony 2010. We write to inform you that classes will be suspended that day in your honor, with all classified and academic faculty receiving the day off. On this special day we encourage prayer (mandatory), meditation and deep consideration of inspirational posters, which will be on display on campus, and offer an early walk-through of the Raghu Mathur Presidential Library (also mandatory). In addition to those historic documents pertaining to your state and national recognition as assembled by the SOCCCD archivist, on display will also be: the $1,200 swivel chair that graced your IVC Presidential Office, the taxidermy corpus of the late beloved Stipey the Security Hound, an audio-video recreation of threatening phone calls from Kate Clark, and an authentic-seeming scale model diorama of your reserved parking places at both the IVC and Saddleback campuses. Finally, we will unveil, in an elaborate commemorative ceremony involving prayer, speeches and bugles, a replica of the two-ton slate of polished granite which Roy Bauer, IVC philosophy professor (and noted body builder) famously threatened to drop on your head and, following the dedication of this iconic, well, icon, the opportunity to climb all over it and yell your name, lead the crowd in prayer or point a finger at those assembled, with three fingers pointing back at yourself. Mandatorily, Events Planning

Comments: Anonymous said... LOL Anonymous said... Funny! Anonymous said... If only my composition classes had been so inspired!