The Goal

Universities are bastions of learning and culture in our nation. Their purpose is to educate and train the youth of America to become leaders in all aspects of society. The faculty of these institutions are learned men renowned in their various fields of endeavor. But despite the differences in their professions they all have one purpose in common. Without exception the most sought after goal of faculty members at institutions of higher learning across our nation is to get the best parking spot possible.

            Professors have been known to pass up promotions in order to retain a good parking spot. Administrations have long been aware of the phenomenon with the result that canny deanlets, vice presidents, and the like have managed to regularly trim budgets by trading prime parking places and high flown titles in lieu of pay raises to deserving and possibly undeserving faculty members. University infighting sometimes reaches epic proportions when professors vie for a parking slot nearest their respective offices.

            One case in particular involved this young and newly hired professor who had received his doctorate from one of those prestigious eastern universities where they tend to add an R to all nouns ending in A. He had already published an article or two in well known journals, his recent book was the hottest thing around in his field, and teaching in Oklahoma was not exactly what he considered the pinnacle of his career. In short, he was a legend in his own mind and he was not shy about announcing it to one and all.

            This professor was well aware of the prestige associated with having a prime parking space and he was determined to have one. There was just one little problem associated with his ambition. For some unknown reason, probably inexperience, he had alienated the most powerful person on campus who is feared and catered to by all, the departmental secretary. Those who cross her inevitably come to a bad end. Somehow their classes always seem to fall at 7:30 in the morning or at 6:00 in the evening and they are scheduled in some out of the way location in rooms destined for immediate demolition. Their phone messages invariably get lost, their photocopy orders seldom get processed, and in general their lives become living hells. There have even been cases when rumors cropped up that their most important works were the result of plagiarism.

            Our man was oblivious to all that when he began his campaign to get the parking slot right next to the departmental chairman. Evidently, he pulled rank and bypassed the secretary to speak with someone higher up the “paper” chain of command. He was so inexperienced that he didn’t know that one could go no higher in the “real” chain of command than the departmental secretary. In due time he received his parking sticker complete with appropriate parking number. Upon investigation, he found that he had been assigned to a parking lot way out on the edge of campus along with the commuter students at a location affectionately dubbed “the mud hole.” He was furious and vented his frustrations to all who would listen, but to no avail.

            In answer to the obvious snub to his superior station in life the professor began to park in an unauthorized spot while he appealed his situation to higher authorities. Over a period of a month or so he accumulated parking fines totaling $857.38 which he refused to pay. When the KK (Kiddie Kops), as the campus police are generally called, impounded his vehicle he was fit to be tied. Forced to ride to class on a bicycle which he locked in his office for fear that it too would be impounded, the professor became more and more paranoid. Ultimately, he suffered a complete nervous breakdown and the last I heard of him he was teaching at a junior college somewhere in Iowa.

            If there is a moral to this story, which I seriously doubt, it is probably that the usual truism in academia is that most battles are so serious because the stakes are so small.