Nina Howe-Goldstein ’25
Cracked Two Ribs at the Function
Dear Scripps College Community Members,
I bet you thought you’d finally escaped Interim President Amy Marcus-Newhall, huh? You thought that just ‘cause we gave her a sad little patch of mulch on Jacqua and called it a ‘rose garden,’ you might be free from the tyrannical rule of a woman with a five-star RateMyProfessor score and a hyphenated last name? Tough luck! Suzie is outta here.
You might be wondering… why? Why would I leave less than a year in, a month before my official inauguration? Why would I dip after Scripps spent so much goddamn money sending me all over the country promoting the school? Why, when every single student at this miserable institution identifies as an empath, would they fumble the bag on one of the world’s leading scholars of empathy?
The answer is simple: no hairstylist in Claremont, Los Angeles County, or the Inland Empire could do justice to my incredibly triangular hair. Every day I woke up in the house that your tuition subsidizes, stared at myself in the mirror, and mourned the fact that I could not find anyone who would perfectly sharpen my waves into a perfect isosceles. The Board of Trustees was worried. And the other 5C presidents mocked me. They laughed behind my back at Athenaeum talks and DIII football games, saying that my insufficiently geometric tresses were proof that Scripps College had lost the mandate of heaven, and our grain crop would surely wither in the coming harvest. So I simply had to leave.
The allegations are true: yes, my 87-year-old father has unspecified maybe-ailments which demand my attention back on the East Coast. (He may have been 86 when I took the job, but that’s an entirely different ballpark from 87.) I may or may not be returning as a normie literature professor in 2024 once [redacted]. Hopefully time in New Jersey will revitalize my lucious, shapely locks and make everyone forget whatever other scandal has apparently pushed me out.
My husband Fran — a name which, let’s be real here, made everyone briefly think I was a lesbian — and I have loved our time in sunny, idyllic Claremont. I will miss directing traffic at Saturday brunch, wearing Ann Taylor pantsuits, and carrying around the world’s most massive tote bag.
I recognize this transition is jarring and may be filled with difficult emotions for many members of our — oh, who am I fucking kidding? Embrace it! Scripps is going through presidents faster than the Motley rejects barista applications. I could do this all day. Scripps is going through presidents faster than a Latin American country nationalizing its oil supply. Scripps is doing regime change faster than your local nonbinary hallmates go through polycule partners. Scripps is going through presidents even faster than SAS does. Scripps is going through presidents faster than Taylor Swift goes through boyfr — oh, does that make you mad? DOES THAT MAKE YOU FUCKING MAD???
You people are so miserable. Did you know that? Coming to Scripps, I quickly discovered that when Fox News hosts got their panties in a twist about blue-haired and pronoun-having psychopaths majoring in interpretive dance, they were actually talking about Scripps, a place where Gabby Giffords is #problematic and a couple unironically does the “Is This Allowed??” pose in the Dorsey first floor hallway biweekly. Thank fucking God the dining hall staff didn’t try to unionize while I was here. Can you imagine the student protests where a lady with triangle hair is the villain? At least Strom Thacker over at Pitzer looks like he had sprung fully formed out of Jeff Bezos’s skull. I would just look like fucking Edna Mode.
Effective immediately, Scripps will be returning to Socialism with Marcus-Newhall Characteristics. The Board got together on its annual ayahuasca retreat at the peak of Mount Baldy, and by unanimous vote, decided to live up to its feminist bonafides by actually giving the job (and exorbitant pay) to the woman who had been doing the job all along. Students can expect a seamless transition of power: never fear, Amelia Mbedelia-Newhall will ensure you suffer through three failed suites and lose a friendship to room draw; she will take the very last spot in the class you need to graduate and take away Saturday brunch acai for good measure.
Feel free to speculate if I embezzled money, ate salad with a hair comb, am a defendant in a racial discrimination lawsuit at Hamilton College, or was covering up the world’s most boring sex scandal. The Nazi statue is officially someone else’s problem.
Out of community,
Suzanne Keen
Image Source: Aanji Sin ’24
