For those of you committed to finishing your degrees at RPI instead of quitting to become deans at MIT, your future looks bleak when it comes to foreign languages—but at least you’ll have your “integrity” intact. Once they cut the German program here at RPI, your only chance at taking classes in the language of the sciences is to maneuver through the maze that is the Hudson-Mohawk Consortium. Scheisse. As soon as they cut the Japanese program … well same goes for you folks. .

Although we have a spanking new, albeit half-empty, research building, a theater on the move, and both a supercomputer and an athletic village on the way, we couldn’t seem to keep our adjunct German professor. And he was being paid a pittance—rumor on the street is 4g’s a semester—to teach classes that definitely weren’t empty.

RPI won’t publish salaries and this is probably the right thing to do. The Albany Times Union, however, did its research and recently published a list of the top 15 paid Faculty (that’s a big F to those unfortunate enough to know the difference). Near the top is a professor of decision sciences and engineering systems, Daniel Berg, at $494,302 before $41,621 in benefits and deferred compensation. Another professor, James Tien, in the same department, makes a measly $239,809 base plus $74,473.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from that, so all I’ll point out is that no matter how poor your grade in diff-eq, there’s a slight difference between $8,000 and $500,000.

Dr. Jackson suggested Skidmore first for its language program, and we agreed that the school is a “new ivy” and probably has great programs. But until I get a driver that can whisk me away to exotic upstate locations, I’m forced to stick with somewhere close I can bike to.

I was curious about the logistics of taking classes in Saratoga Springs, so I worked out some rough calculations using Google maps and found that in order to drive to classes, I would spend a minimum of 53.3 hours per semester driving between campuses. And that’s before navigating gnarly traffic on 87 and finding parking at both places. That’s 2,048 miles minimum, so 81.92 gallons of gas in the fuel-conservative Saab. UAlbany is under half the distance and time but 25 hours of time spent traveling is still not feasible.

Well, maybe I’ll just take a page from Marilee Jones’ book and give up on the whole classes thing so I can be the dean of language in Munich for the next three decades or so …