A Parent's View Of College - 2016 Poem by Mark J. Schulte

O Muse, I implore you, can you recall?
Great Caesar - who once ruled the three parts of Gaul?
Or Milton, whose verses depicted the Fall.
To where have our colleges gone?
Let me explain it once and for all.

We once studied History and English and more.
The curriculum today is pure Common Core.
Truth Inconvenient, we must now explore.
Where do these inquiries lead?
To the desk of Chris Matthews and the likes of Al Gore!

I need to discover a campus safe space
from where I can launch a tirade to efface
intellectual freedom from this learned place.
But when and how to express it?
Use present tense - but the 'accusative' case.

This Campus is safe from micro-aggressions,
but is it protected from moral repression?
There's clearly a need for divine intercession.
But, do professors believe in a God? (Hah!)
They quote Noam Chomsky, not Augustine's Confessions

No need for a faculty, bring in the coaches
who employ some peculiar admission approaches...
that lower the bar until it encroaches
on that red line that must not be crossed:
does a 20 percentile - signal mental necrosis?

But Caroline - Caroline - she beat the odds.
Political Science is approved by the gods:
no gerrymandered major, no scholastic facade.
But can Political Science be relevant now?
I'll let you know - if we take out Assad.

And Spanish - Espanol - the most useful of all.
The American fans hear the clarion call.
It's soccer no more, se llama 'futbol'.
But, señor - why speak of this now?
If we ain't building bridges, we're building a Wall.

Into the real world Ms Schulte is led.
A legal profession is full speed ahead?
But what can that mean when Scalia is dead?
Let no one fret who is here.....'cause
the sky is the limit when you're smart and well-read! !