Greg Dierstein, a freshman in Professor Romano’s literature seminar in 1993, woke up at 3:00 a.m. last night with an enlightened revelation.

“I think Dr. Romano was right when he said reading and writing are really important in the real world,” said Greg. “I’m going to start using spellcheck so I can get that promotion I’ve always wanted.”

“Teachers are just trying to plant some seeds of wisdom,” replied a surprised Romano, whom we tracked him down at his floor manager job at the Metro Central Walmart.

Romano left academia after failing to earn tenure in 1995. At the time, the tenure committee cited poor teaching evaluations, including a particularly passionate feedback form that said “…Docter Romanno dosn’t teach anything relavent to the real wolrd…and should be aborted from the worlld of teaching. Litteracher is stuupid…”

Universities have begun sending lobbyists from both academic and financial affairs to Ohio University in hopes of influencing a particularly contentious impending tenure decision. Heated debate surrounds the alleged uncivil behavior of tenure candidate, Bill Reader.

“Every campus gives tenure and promotions to cantankerous egomaniacs,” said one lobbyist from an academic affairs advocacy group. “It’s part of our identity to have at least one abusive asshole in each department. We can put up with insults and harassment if it means we don’t have to deal with conflict. It’s so much nicer to avoid confrontation.”

“It’s also the ethical thing, fiscally,” said an anonymous Vice President of Finance. “These jerks are predisposed to be litigious, and we don’t want to waste students’ precious tuition money on lawsuits. I thought tenure was supposed to be about scholarship, not a popularity contest.”