But What Does His CV Say About Teaching Experience And Committee Service?

[dr_pretentious]

I've heard about some weird hiring decisions in academia, but hiring a Hindu deity to chair a business school takes the cake.

Thanks to my excellent writing critique partner David Sklar for the link.

EDIT: My mom thought I was being figurative, but no, the news story claims that a business school in India has made the monkey god Hanuman its chair. Professor Hanuman has his own office, his own computer, his own conference table, and daily offerings of incense. This is the point at which some folks would say, "You can't make this stuff up." Well, actually, I've made up some pretty wacky stuff in my time, but this one happens to come straight from Yahoo news.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I wonder by what means Hanuman indicated his acceptance of the job?

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

Think of the ramifications . . .

The article doesn't say what He's chair of, so

if he's a department chair, does he do performance evaluations? How tough are those?

if it's the Board of Trustees, what must those meetings be like? Does he run a tight meeting, or is he silent?

Imagine being his successor. How could there be one--he'd have to resign, die, or get fired--unless there's a term limit? On the one hand, you'd have to feel like you could never measure up. On the other hand, you would seem like an activist chair, really focussed on the details of running the college. And much less likely to call the students monkeys and take the school to war.