I was impressed with NIU’s new athletic director, but a mischievous mental voice kept changing some key words in his speech. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if NIU put the same amount of energy and promise into the humanities as into football and basketball? See my dream below! I’ve added some – after all, it is my fantasy – but mostly I’ve just changed some words.

I present to you the promises of a new AD – as envisioned in the fantasies of a humble academic, me.

First, my mantra – and it’s going to be everyone’s mantra in NIU humanities (including English, history, philosophy, psychology, basic sciences, languages and others) – is to give our student learners a world-class experience. That means succeeding academically, socially and even, when the mind needs a rest, athletically. It’s our job to make sure student learners succeed in the classroom, enjoy their time at NIU and graduate with degrees that lead to successful careers.

Second, building the program means building our budget. We have to give our professors and staff additional support for travel, recruiting, scholarships and academic services, and increase private fundraising, but it also means we have to increase corporate sponsorships, television sponsorships, ticket sales, apparel and shoe contracts – every aspect of the revenue picture. We will develop a better library and also create more liaisons with the public schools!

Third, NIU is blessed with a great staff in the humanities, and one of my major challenges this first year will be making sure those folks have what they need to do their jobs; certainly resources, but also organizational structure and procedures. I’ll be putting a major emphasis on personnel development this year. Instead of financially starving English, history and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in general, we will dramatically increase their budgets, including a major program to help educate and better pay our TAs and TIs, who often are the first line of defense against immature 18- and 19-year-olds who too often think the humanities irrelevant.

Fourth, we need a master plan for humanities facilities that is based on areas of greatest need and greatest return. This includes facilities for theater, library journals, more computer labs and offices to staff the new faculty we so desperately need. We can even throw in recreational sports – basketball, volleyball – in that big classroom building, aka the Convocation Center.

In short, my fellow citizens of NIU, although the Board of Trustees thinks it’s hiring a new sports director, I am secretly a humanistic scholar who believes the major task of the university is not distraction via bread and circuses but educating and strengthening the wisdom of its citizenry. Our first task is to create a strong democracy by making its inhabitants as knowledgeable and as well-informed as possible about our own culture and civilization and cultures throughout the world. By the way, athletics do have a place in the university but always in the service of our primary mission. Beat Maryland! And also, Shakespeare rocks!

And with those words, I awaken from my fantasy.

John V. Knapp

Professor, English