Mike for Dean of CNR UCB

My alma mater, the College of Natural Resources, University of California Berkeley, is currently seeking a new Dean. In the interests of rescuing that academy from obsolescence and irrelevance, I hereby nominate myself for the job.

I bring the following attributes to the position:

1.  I am non-credentialed at the doctoral level, and have zero experience in running a college. In most cases this would be a disqualifier, but in California, and especially at UCB, it’s a big plus. The less the experience, the better; take the Governor for example.

2.  I will make radical changes. Again, this is a big, big plus at Berkeley, World’s Foremost Snake Pit of Radicalism.

3.  I will restore the CNR to its former function as a professional forestry school.

When I matriculated in Mulford Hall, it was called the College of Forestry. I was there when Hank Vaux ripped the word “Forestry” off the door. I was the undergrad rep to the Committee. Even though I wasn’t even a forester yet, forestry was what I had committed to, and I opposed the change with all my power, which amounted to less than none. What a jerk Hank Vaux was in person, too. He single-handedly wrecked the College and the forestry profession in CA, and in my view set the table for the catastrophic fires we suffer today.

The latest “good” news from CNR includes interference in the internal affairs of New Zealand, as the CNR is proud of screwing farmers out of their property rights halfway around the world. How Marxist of CNR! One of their big selling points! And the hiring of an enviro-atty from Australia whose specialty is suing industry, and a “forester” who decries homes in the “wildlands,” whatever and wherever the hell that is.

And more. And less. The omissions are glaring. Few denizens of Mulford Hall have yet noticed our 20+ year-long crisis of megafires and the ongoing mass destruction of our forests, evidently, or else almost nobody there gives a rat. My former College of Forestry has become tragic and pathetic, and that is very old news.

Sigh. But I will fix all that.

4.  I will root out the Communists and Fascists and drive them from the Temple of Learning. I may use a bullwhip (or a cattle prod, or a taser). It will be great street theater, and the entertainment will boost public awareness and support for CNR.

5.  I will bring onto the faculty the best, most advanced, most cutting edge foresters, forest scientists, forest historians, ethno-botanists, anthropologists, and cultural landscape geographers. Within six months CNR UCB will become the leading forestry institute in the world, recognized home of the New Paradigm, and the exemplar and object of jealousy and envy of every other environmental college, large or small. CNR stock will soar as new funding rushes in to catch the wave.

6.  CNR will once again teach and support professional forestry and will soon be turning out the best graduate professional foresters in the world, as they once did many decades ago.

All in all, no other candidate for the job comes close to my attributes. I am the best and brightest of the lot, and CNR is indeed fortunate to have my name in the hat, now.

There’s a rub, though. Whether or not I am hired  as Dean of CNR, I intend to do all of the above anyway. If they wanted, and if they were smart, they could get all my fine services for pennies.

However, if they don’t hire me (a likely mistake), I’m not making them the Center of the New Paradigm. I will make it elsewhere, and the CNR UCB will continue to slip-slide away towards useless oblivion.