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Brogan Retirement Quips

December 12, 2011

Dr. Brogan at his party
Photo: Dr. Brogan takes his SOW (single occupancy walker) for a spin around the Stamm Room

10. Obscure George Costanza, Elaine Benis, and Cosmo Kramer classroom references no longer have relevance in a Lady Gaga world.   

9. A Sense-of-the-Senate resolution, sponsored  by Faculty Senate President Tim Ross, designates every other Thursday as Hawaiian shirt day.   

8. The Department’s three female faculty members, Julie Coonrod, Susan Bogus-Halter, and Vanessa Valentin, request leaves-without-pay in order to start their world tour. The group will be known as the Singing Civil Sisters. 

7. Urgent correspondence from the Office of the Dean reports large numbers of Civil Engineering students “pacing” on the sidewalk between the CEC and Electrical Engineering before heading off to the Duck Pond carrying several unfamiliar pieces of equipment. Fears are expressed that this may be the start of an (un)occupy SOE movement on this end of campus.   

6. Bruce Thomson volunteers to give a graduate seminar entitled “Bluegrass vs. Old-Time Music: an Ethnomusicological Comparison of Two Popular Genres.”   

5. Mark Stone insists that a great name for a rock group is “You, Me, and BernouLLI!” (Sorry, that’s BerNOUlli – I had my accent on the wrong SylLABLE!)   

4. For the second year in a row, you’re forced to break up a scuffle in the parking lot of the Marriott Pyramid. Opposing groups are heard chanting “ASPHALT” on one side and “CONCRETE” on the other.   

3. Andy Schuler continues to call you Dr. Brogan, Kerry Howe insists on referring to you as “Sir” and Associate Dean Charles B. “Chuck” Fleddermann occasionally addresses you as “Walter.”   

2. Department Chair John Stormont succumbs to pressure from the environmental faculty to establish a new research area in the Department entitled the Center for Research on Atmospheric Pollutants – until he realizes that the acronym for the new unit is C.R.A.P.   

1. James R. Platt (BSCE, 2010) informs you after class one day that you had his father, Robert B. Platt (BSCE, 1984) in this same course 26 years ago.