Read Online Dear Committee Members: A Novel by Julie Schumacher - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Julie Schumacher
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afford the amenities inextricably tied to their education, students need wealthy financial backers or a mountain of loans—and so many on-and off-campus jobs they barely have time to go to class.
Writing this letter has thoroughly depressed me, but it hasn’t made me less determined to see Pazmentalyi promoted. You want to sweep out his office and deport him to “Literature” or“Cultural Studies” or ask the Mortuary Science Department to find a place for him—so be it. But give him the measly sum he deserves and reward him for superbly performing the work he was hired to do.
Irritated and restless, but not as fractious as I can be, Jay Fitger
Professor/Agitator/Slum Dweller
Willard Hall
----
* Admittedly, an absurd suggestion: I’m certain the volleyball coach earns three times the salary of a literature professor.
January 20, 2010
Aaron Young, Human Resources Kompu-Metricka, Inc.
77 Laguna Avenue
Bloomington, MN 55420
Dear Mr. Young,
Ms. Vanessa Cuddigan has asked me to submit a letter of reference to your poorly spelled organization on her behalf. While I have only praise for Ms. Cuddigan, who graduated two years ago with a major in English, I had expected her to ask that I recommend her for graduate school. Instead, having completed a stint with Teach for America, she is now apparently desirous of some sort of data-entry position with your firm—clearly a soul-squelching enterprise. I have asked her to explain herself but she is evasive, leading me to wonder if something unfortunate happened during the past two years to destroy her ambition.
Should you hire Ms. Cuddigan you will find her thoroughly impressive. She is extremely bright, her insights are fresh, and she has a talent for synthesizing heterogeneous ideas into compelling interpretations of the assigned material. Were she applying to graduate school as I have repeatedly urged her to do, I would take the time here to describe her thesis, a sterling examination of the concept of secrecy in the work of two contemporarynovelists, Louise Erdrich and Jonathan Safran Foer, but she has made her Faustian bargain and pinned her newly constricted hopes on Kompu-Metricka, so I will limit myself to recommending her on the basis of her brilliant analytical imagination, her invariable originality of approach, her open-mindedness, and her impeccable character.
You or any other employer will be very fortunate to hire a person such as Ms. Cuddigan, who may one day rise to leadership in your organization, at which point I trust it will adopt a more reasonable spelling. In the meantime, I hope you will not consign her to a windowless environment populated entirely by unsocialized clones who long ago abandoned the reading and discussion of literature in favor of creating ever more restrictive and meaningless ways in which humans are intended to make themselves known to one another.
Keeping the torch aloft, I remain Jay Fitger
Professor of Creative Writing and English Author (i.e., books)
January 21, 2010
Janet Matthias- Fitger
Law School Admissions
17 Pitlinger Hall
Janet:
Sending this in haste and perturbation, and hoping this letter finds you cheerfully disposed toward your onetime spouse … I have a graduate student, I believe I told you about him—his name is Browles and he needs a job that will cover his spring tuition. I had hoped to tuck him away for a productive month or two at Bentham, but Eleanor slammed the door in his face, then compounded the insult by offering a six-month residency to one of his classmates, a tepid memoir writer named Vivian Zelles. (Please tell me you haven’t corresponded with Eleanor about this; have you?)
I appeal not to your long-lost affection for me but your sense of fairness: your law school professors are sitting on tuffets of money over there in Pitlinger, what with old attorneys dying and, graveside, signing over their estates to ensure that every lowly assistant professor gets a research account and a stack
Writing this letter has thoroughly depressed me, but it hasn’t made me less determined to see Pazmentalyi promoted. You want to sweep out his office and deport him to “Literature” or“Cultural Studies” or ask the Mortuary Science Department to find a place for him—so be it. But give him the measly sum he deserves and reward him for superbly performing the work he was hired to do.
Irritated and restless, but not as fractious as I can be, Jay Fitger
Professor/Agitator/Slum Dweller
Willard Hall
----
* Admittedly, an absurd suggestion: I’m certain the volleyball coach earns three times the salary of a literature professor.
January 20, 2010
Aaron Young, Human Resources Kompu-Metricka, Inc.
77 Laguna Avenue
Bloomington, MN 55420
Dear Mr. Young,
Ms. Vanessa Cuddigan has asked me to submit a letter of reference to your poorly spelled organization on her behalf. While I have only praise for Ms. Cuddigan, who graduated two years ago with a major in English, I had expected her to ask that I recommend her for graduate school. Instead, having completed a stint with Teach for America, she is now apparently desirous of some sort of data-entry position with your firm—clearly a soul-squelching enterprise. I have asked her to explain herself but she is evasive, leading me to wonder if something unfortunate happened during the past two years to destroy her ambition.
Should you hire Ms. Cuddigan you will find her thoroughly impressive. She is extremely bright, her insights are fresh, and she has a talent for synthesizing heterogeneous ideas into compelling interpretations of the assigned material. Were she applying to graduate school as I have repeatedly urged her to do, I would take the time here to describe her thesis, a sterling examination of the concept of secrecy in the work of two contemporarynovelists, Louise Erdrich and Jonathan Safran Foer, but she has made her Faustian bargain and pinned her newly constricted hopes on Kompu-Metricka, so I will limit myself to recommending her on the basis of her brilliant analytical imagination, her invariable originality of approach, her open-mindedness, and her impeccable character.
You or any other employer will be very fortunate to hire a person such as Ms. Cuddigan, who may one day rise to leadership in your organization, at which point I trust it will adopt a more reasonable spelling. In the meantime, I hope you will not consign her to a windowless environment populated entirely by unsocialized clones who long ago abandoned the reading and discussion of literature in favor of creating ever more restrictive and meaningless ways in which humans are intended to make themselves known to one another.
Keeping the torch aloft, I remain Jay Fitger
Professor of Creative Writing and English Author (i.e., books)
January 21, 2010
Janet Matthias- Fitger
Law School Admissions
17 Pitlinger Hall
Janet:
Sending this in haste and perturbation, and hoping this letter finds you cheerfully disposed toward your onetime spouse … I have a graduate student, I believe I told you about him—his name is Browles and he needs a job that will cover his spring tuition. I had hoped to tuck him away for a productive month or two at Bentham, but Eleanor slammed the door in his face, then compounded the insult by offering a six-month residency to one of his classmates, a tepid memoir writer named Vivian Zelles. (Please tell me you haven’t corresponded with Eleanor about this; have you?)
I appeal not to your long-lost affection for me but your sense of fairness: your law school professors are sitting on tuffets of money over there in Pitlinger, what with old attorneys dying and, graveside, signing over their estates to ensure that every lowly assistant professor gets a research account and a stack
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