SchoolCenter

Scott: Hello everyone, and welcome back to SchoolCenter on ASPN, the Academic and Scholastic Programming Network.

Bill: Any particular reason why you just said what the acronym for our station stands for, Scott? I’d imagine pretty much all of our viewers already know what the letters mean.

Scott: You know, you’re right, Bill. I guess that was pretty awkward and unnecessarily descriptive. I’ll remember not to do it next time. Anyway, our top story tonight, it looks like top high school recruit James Bronle is very close to accepting a $30,000 per year scholarship to study chemistry at Harvard. Bill, what do you make of this?

Bill: Well, Scott, I think this agreement makes a lot of sense on both sides. Harvard’s obviously a great school that the pro chemical labs are always looking at, and of course James’ specialty is inorganic chemistry. Harvard hasn’t had a strong starter in that specific field since Greg Owens graduated early to join the big leagues at Albany Engineered Composites.

Scott: Exactly, that’s the main reason why Princeton has been so consistently beating them in the Big Northeast Conference in chemistry these past few years.

Bill: Right. Now, Scott, I feel like we have this discussion basically every year, but I’ve gotta ask: what do you say to those people out there who claim that all this focus on academics at colleges and universities just detracts from their real purpose of fielding competitive sports teams?

Scott: Well, look, it is true that a majority of these liberal arts majors-English, Philosophy, whatever-won’t ever actually be talented enough to go pro. And, yes, I do worry about those young upper-middle class suburbanites who look at guys like Bronle and think that scholastic achievement is the only way to make it out of their high income communities. But the fact is these academic programs bring in a ton of money that their schools couldn’t survive without. And let’s not forget that the students love them, too.

Bill: Very true. Plus, with all the pro scholars juiced up on Adderall and Ritalin these days, college academics just seem uniquely pure, you know? I really just hope we’ll be able to avoid another Dr. Manley scandal.

Scott: Ah, yes, the infamous podiatrist who graduated from Oklahoma State without knowing how to catch a football.

Bill: That still gives me chills just thinking about it…oh, wait, never mind, we just forgot to turn that fan off. Ted, can you take care of this?

Scott: Coming up after the break, we’ll examine whether or not Yale was justified in firing highly accomplished yet controversial History Professor Mort Cleach for allegedly locking student Jim Adams in the archives while he was recovering from a particularly nasty paper cut he received from one of his history books. Stick around.