ON UNIVERSITY. I FEEL THE UGH!

Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper: A Novel (New York: Riverhead, 2012) (Dad, what can I say' 'I don't know, Charlie, what can you say?' 'The university's a microcosm of society.' 'Is that what you can say? Is that all you can say?" 'Well now, what exactly are you saying? How exactly is all or even any of this my fault?' 'Charlie, I don't mean you personally. I mean you academics. You all sit there watching the flames as the barn burns down crying, "How's this our fault? We didn't do it!"' 'What exactly would you have us do, me or any of us?' 'Charlie, how did you get to be this age, sitting in this office with your name and title on the door, chair of the History Department, and you're not ashamed to be asking me for that?' 'Dad, leaving the question of my shame to one side, what the hell would you have me do?' 'You should be speaking out publicly about these things. You guys should be writing letters. You should be organizing like-minded people to do these things. You should be giving encouragement, comfort and support to those people, students, faculty, people around the city who don't have the chance to be heard like you do but who fear this institution is going to hell in a handbasket instead of . . .' 'Instead of what?' 'Instead of staying back late in this office leaving your wife and daughter at home so you can write narrowly focused arcane academic articles to be read by a handful of people just to keep your quota up and all of it merely in the service of your own aggrandizement.'" Id. at 412-413.).

Elliot Perlman, Three Dollars Street Sweeper: A Novel (New York: Riverhead, 1998).