In a shocking administrative decision tentatively linked with the plan to make Wesleyan a more marketable school and raise its Princeton Guide ratings, the administration has cut funding for the University’s acclaimed Ethnomusicology program.
“We simply don’t want to be thought of as a hippy school anymore,” said President of the College Douglas J. Bennet.
According to recent questionnaires distributed to high school students around the nation, the common perception of Wesleyan University is one of politically active but academically weak students. Responses indicated that highschoolers frequently write-off Wesleyan before even visiting, mostly because New York Times and High Times coverage stress nudity and music as the college’s strong points.
The Bennet administration has apparently connected this misunderstanding of the University with the Ethnomusicology program’s national fame.
“While we recognize that the Ethnomusicology program is, in fact, one of our school’s strongest, we also know that it is a source of much ridicule in the academic community of the United States,” Bennet wrote in a mass email sent to all faculty and staff this weekend. “We have thus decided to cut funding to the program and direct it toward more acceptable disciplines” such as Biology and Classical Studies.
The Music Department and CFA staff, upset at what they perceive to be a rather personal insult, have issued an email of complaint, which they directed at Bennet but CC’d to former Dean of the College Freddye Hill, whom they feel would support them in their anger, were she still employed by the University.
“Hill was always the ally of the under-represented,” said one CFA staffer, who asked to remain anonymous.
“Rather than create a perception that Wesleyan students are lazy and only want to play sitars, the Ethnomusicology program instead fosters an artistic ambience that enriches all the University community,” reads the email, which the Argus received clandestinely from WesPartyGuide IM screenname, the paper’s new source for all Wesleyan-related news.
In response, Bennet is reported to have scoffed, “yeah, an artistic ambience that keeps our endowment low and our Princeton Report ratings out of the top ten.”
Though few students have heard about the yet-to-be-announced decision to cut the Ethnomusicology program, those in the know seem indifferent.
“I mean, come on—who gives a fuck about Ethnomusicology anyway,” said Mike San Filippo ’05, Editor in Chief of the Argus and influential voice on campus.
“Oh, what?,” said one student leaving the CFA. “Oh, I mean, I feel like that’s okay.”
But, predictably, some students are crying conspiracy.
“This is obviously part of the plan to mainstream Wesleyan,” shouted one student protesting outside North College.
Though the temperature was low and the weather rainy, this determined Music major and five others kept up their complaints for two hours during Bennet’s office hours.
“First Art House and then Ethnomusicology. Next thing you know, he’ll be eliminating organic food on campus too,” said Sky Smith ’07. “I didn’t come here to study mainstream quote-unquote academic disciplines like Math or Science or Literature or African American Studies or Sociology,” he added, using the “bunny ears” finger motion for emphasis. “Or to read or to write, for that matter. I came to study East Indian Rural Folk Music of the 12th Century. That’s my dream. And I’ll do that regardless of whether Bennet wants me to or not.”
Of course you will, fair student, of course you will.
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