Debating Debasing the Campus, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #201 | @MDWorld

October 16, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 0 Comments

Dear Art,
I write to you on the eve of a great event for your alma mater, this week Hofstra University will host the second presidential debate.  This isn’t our first time hosting a debate but I strongly feel that hosting two cycles in a row does a lot to move our institution up into a higher tier of educational institutions.  Do you think we’re doing enough to capitalize on this opportunity?  Is there any chance this will backfire horribly on us?
-Stuart Rabinowitz, President, Hofstra University

Stu,
I think you’re standing on the precipice of real opportunity here.  Unfortunately this particular precipice has cliffs on both sides and you could just as easily fall into the territory of laughing stock as you could whatever your ultimate goal is, some kind of off-brand NYU for high school students who can’t read maps.  All you need is the media to grab one negative story and the whole thing falls apart on you and if I’ve learned one thing from reality TV over the last few years it’s that the media loves negative stories about certain types of northeastern stereotypes.  I’m not saying you cater to those but I’m pretty sure I took classes with people who were too drunk and stupid to get on Jersey Shore.

Someone might aggregate a bunch of tweets of Hofstra students sounding like stupid children complaining about the debate (oh wait that already happened) and that could get picked up by some lazy journalist and suddenly all of your good press is turning sour.  Maybe one of your local bars could make a stupid flier with the presidential candidates on it that could make someone dig into the binge drinking culture on your campus.  I’m not saying binge drinking isn’t a widespread problem and I assure you if I were still a student my Twitter account would be nothing but complaints but reporters don’t necessarily care.  People in glass houses shouldn’t invite the entire country to set up cameras on their curb if you catch my drift.

I’m sure you can get some positive coverage out of this.  Maybe not positive coverage, I don’t ever remember seeing a good story about a debate host, but you could increase your name recognition.  Come to think of it I can’t even name the host universities of the two debates this year.  The first presidential debate was in Denver so I’m guessing that was a University of Colorado campus.  All I know about the VP debate is it wasn’t in my kitchen.  This might not be much of a PR coup.

Oh, one last thing, try not to let anyone talk about the years Bernie Madoff served as a trustee.  I can’t imagine that would play well.