Let's hold off classes

Classes begin Monday. But do they have to? \nWould it kill the board of trustees or the Indiana Commission for Higher Education or Gov. Mitch Daniels if summer break were two weeks longer? The 2005-06 school year will likely be of profound and lasting importance. Rushing into it could bring about disastrous mistakes. Like the carpenters say: "measure twice, cut once." Have we really measured twice, or are we just tossing this year into the old academic band saw?\nI understand the eagerness of the powers-that-be to get things rolling. But in their haste, I fear they haven't considered the many important arguments for restraint:\n• Flip-flop integrity. Given temperatures hotter than 80 degrees, 78.6 percent of the student body will wear flip-flops to class Monday (Bureau of Fictional Statistics, 2003). Yet, as everyone knows, flip-flops are not rated for high-speed travel. With a top speed of 23 miles per hour (Wikipedia), a running human can easily exceed flip-flop structural limits, causing blow-outs -- with the potential for stubbed toes, twisted ankles, even the dreaded face-plant. Rather than having students injured while racing to class Monday, it would be better to travel gradually. Say, during the course of a week or two. \n• Protecting Indiana's identity. By deciding to adopt daylight-saving time, Indiana might have moved toward joining the 20th century (if not the 21st), but it lost a key element of its distinctiveness. Whichever time zone it joins, Indiana will simply be one among many states springing forward and falling back in sheep-like conformity. Hoosiers need new ways to assert their individuality. Some options, like driving on the left side of the road, speaking Danish or legalizing polygamy would be unique, but may have unfortunate side effects. However, starting University classes in October? Now, that would be different.\n• The threat of large, man-eating raccoons. Of course, I have no proof the residence halls are infested with huge, cow-sized raccoons feasting greedily on the flesh of unwary travelers. Then again, I have no proof they aren't infested. Better to keep things shut down until we can prove they don't exist.\n• Defrosting the faculty. It's a little known fact that upon completion of final grades, to avoid the expense of air conditioning, the University gathers all faculty members into hermetically-sealed, liquid nitrogen-filled tubes, and freezes them until fall. No, don't bother trying to confirm this. Thanks to memory implants, the faculty usually thinks it was just attending conferences. (C'mon. Could there be that many academic conferences?)\nBut now, with the school year approaching, we must ask ourselves: is the faculty fully thawed? I'm not talking about TV dinners -- it would not do to have brittle faculty dropping parts in mid-lecture. You know what they say: half-thawed faculty, half-baked theories.\nThus, I say to all those in charge: what's the big hurry?\nOh, right -- my paycheck.