An unnamed conservatory staff member was fired the last week in January in order to make room in the budget for SARK, sources say.Sources say that Seong-Kyung Graham may have been the sacrificial lamb, but Dean of the Faculty Kathy Murray declined to confirm or deny her firing, saying, “She’s staff. Do you think I keep track of every janitor or grill worker or security officer or assistant orchestra conductor who gets hired and fired?””
Murray added with a congenial smile, “ask (director of personnel) Hoopes.”
“I thought she was faculty. I had nothing to do with this,” said Hoopes.
SARK was ambivalent on assigning blame. “I’m just glad I got paid. Seong. What a nice name. I mean, what is money anyway? They could have just found the money somewhere else.”
Other faculty are upset that they didn’t have a say in where the money for SARK came from. In a recent meeting, Professor of English Dintenfass apparently suggested that “over my dead body” was an option. Professor of Physics Cook wondered aloud about the prudence of bringing an “avowedly anti-rational speaker into an institution, bringing the values of this university into a most severe light.”
Professor Dane Richeson suggested that maybe a less attractive staff member could have been laid off, “perhaps one of those old Downer broads. I mean, have you seen Seong? Damn, that girl can move, and she beats out that groove like a man.”
Warch apparently suggested that he give two convocations this year.
“Why, that’s mighty succulent of you, Rik,” quipped secretary Ed Kern, accidentally confessing, to his embarrassment, to the room that he had read copies of SARK’s book in advance of her talk.
“Come on Ed, we all know she’s a dumb box,” shot back Kern’s history colleague Natasha Gray. Several insults involving Harry Potter and the “Peter Pan” syndrome came from the back corner of Wriston, where Peter Glick and Matt Ansfield sat together.
“Won’t you psych bastards shut the hell up?” shot back Assistant Dean of the Faculty and former Chair of Psychology department Gerald Seaman.
Professor Troy thought the university should just do it. “Don’t you remember what it was like to be young? To be really young?!”
Professor Hunsicker leaned over to Professor Joy Jordan and chuckled. “I now realized why Dean Seaman’s last name is so funny.