An Open Letter to Emerson College (Part of a Continuing Series)

Dear Emerson College,

That I am still on your faculty mailing list seven months after I taught my last class with you is only charmingly incompetent. However, that I am, it appears, simultaneously on your alumni shakedown phone list is infuriatingly incompetent.

Can you imagine how insulting it would have been had I actually still been teaching Freshman Writing (for $16,000 a year, with no benefits or job security), to be called on a Sunday afternoon and asked whether I would like to do my part to enhance the Emerson experience for its current students? Can you imagine how awkward it would have been for the FRESHMAN calling me if I had, in fact, currently been her teacher?

Seriously, Emerson, get it together. How hard is it to cross-check a couple of lists?

Sincerely,

A. Ladd

P.S. I read with satisfaction your updated diversity plan last month, from which you have at last removed your offensive "white/foreign/other" categories, so kudos on that. Also, that leads me to believe that you do actually pay attention to the open—and, indeed, closed—letters of complaint I write you, so I hope this one does the trick.