Verified by 
Some years ago, I saw a segment on a Sunday morning news show about a rock and roll fantasy camp, which offered the opportunity for regular – though affluent (the cost for just four days is several thousand dollars) – people to get a taste of what it’s like to be a rock star, as well as the chance to hang out with some genuine, if somewhat over the hill, rock stars. This camp still exists, and there are other fantasy camps, too, of course, including camps for those whose dream was to be a professional athlete.
Actually, there could be fantasy camps for all kinds of jobs and professions. Take my old job, for example. For more than 25 years I was a college professor, and surely there could be big money in starting a college professor fantasy camp.
I know that as many of my students sat there watching me passionately discuss the work of Wilhelm Wundt and Solomon Asch, they were enthralled. Sometimes it was hard to teach, as I sensed the excitement in my students. When I talked of experiments in which human participants tried to memorize lists of words or white rats learned to traverse a maze, I could tell that many of those young – and sometimes not so young – minds in my classrooms were dreaming of a time when they, too, might be able to stand in front of a class and do what I was doing.
Well, in my College Professor Fantasy Camp, that opportunity will be there.
For four days, anyone with the $3,999.99 to cough up for it will be able to enjoy the thrill of being a college professor! Here are just a few of the experiences you will have:
See what it’s like to actually stand in front of a group of mostly young people talking about something you love while some of them doze off and others frequently raise their hands to ask if what you’re talking about will be on the mid-term. And don’t worry if there is nothing you love to talk about or feel you know much about. The camp will supply the materials. In no time at all, you’ll be sounding like an expert, using terms like meta-analysis, social constructivism, and dependent variable.
Do research. Spend five hours in the library reading such journals as the Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies, Journal of Advanced Research in Differential Equations, or the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, and be ready to present some new idea stemming from your reading that will make a small and insignificant contribution to the literature.
Go to a “faculty meeting,” where your fellow campers, along with a bunch of distinguished (even if you’ve never heard of them) real emeritus faculty sit there while a former college president, acting the part of a current one, addresses you and tells you that, once again, there will be less money for next year. Then, after the meeting, join your fellow campers and retirees from academe to try to make small talk about such issues as Shakespeare’s use of the word “the,” the limited-effects theory of mass media, and the role of the unconscious in the case of a man who craved potato knishes.
Give an exam! Don’t worry, we’ll supply the questions. But you will have the joy of watching “students” sit and sweat over them, while you keep an eagle eye to see if anyone is cheating. And at least one of your students will cheat, and you will be expected to call them on it. You’ll then have the thrill of confrontation and hearing your student’s threat to sue you and all your descendants for this denial of their rights.
Grade term papers. Read and comment on a stack of papers that will keep you just alert enough to stay awake but provide little that is interesting enough to make you want to live another hour. See if you can spot the plagiarism that the camp will make sure occurs in at least some of the papers. And then have the fun of confronting the student about it, especially if the student has already “lawyered up.”
Hold office hours. Yes, sit in an office for two hours as perhaps two or three students show up, mainly to complain about a grade on an exam or to ask questions that show they didn’t bother reading the material. And if you are a man, one of the students who comes in will be an attractive young woman who will smile at you, and, if you smile back, will let you know that she’s going to be charging you with sexual harassment.
And, yes, since all good things must come to an end, on the final day of camp you’ll be invited into your dean’s office to be told that even though the sexual harassment charge has been dropped, you have not been awarded tenure. You will be wished well and advised to enjoy the fun of Adjunct Instructor Fantasy Camp!
