Straight from the desk of Chancellor Jones comes unceasing commendations for the newest, hottest course on campus — what has become known as Satire 101. The University is more than pleased to announce the Campus Scout-taught course has almost completely filled up across eight different time slots scattered across the week.

However, the course is officially titled Communications 453: Inverse Mechanisms in Public Discourse for legal reasons.

In anticipation of the coming fall semester, our multi-faceted Professor Scout has already nailed his black-and-white watermarked diplomas from Gupton-Jones College and the Hannibal Buress University of Upper Yonkers to the wood-paneled wall of his secret fifth-floor Gregory Hall office.

He welcomes students to preemptive office hours to get ahead on the unorthodox thirteen-week course.

To best hammer home his material, the good Professor is instituting lectures on Mondays and Wednesdays, recitations on Tuesdays and Fridays, discussions on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and laboratory sessions on days where recitations, lectures and discussions don’t overlap.

The curriculum will be dense.

As mentioned in the syllabus, the curriculum will start with basic figures of the trade like Stewart and Voltaire, then moving on to the more complex characters, like Iannucci and Zoshchenko. 

Never heard of any of these more-or-less acclaimed individuals? Professor Scout has you covered — just watch all seven seasons of Veep for extra credit and you’ll be fine. 

Even if the daunting workload threatens to discourage even the toughest and most sleep-deprived James Scholar, just keep the breezy final exam in mind, which consists entirely of reading a New Yorker editorial and writing exactly the opposite of what it meant. 

Fear not. Anyone can be a satirist, no matter whether they intend to be. A quick look at the Twitter feed of the Queen Husky herself, Marjorie Taylor Greene, reveals a veritable gold mine of undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek remarks.

The class is not only intended for learning about satire, however. First, Professor Scout’s pupils must learn to write it themselves.

Professor Scout encourages his pupils to take it easy on their soft-brained audiences. It’s not like everyone owns a device that can look up a definition in a heartbeat. Regular people can’t comprehend big adult words like “citizen” and “current social climate.” 

The Professor knows writers shouldn’t talk up to their audiences. Looking down is so much easier for them.

In this vein, satire should never be challenging or demanding for an audience. The easier the read, the happier the reader. 

This is the core of Professor Scout’s curriculum — happy reader, happy writer. If the audience is satisfied with their meal, then we culinary wizards can sleep peacefully. After all, there is nothing left to offer if there are no mouths to feed.

There is no better example than what Professor Scout has to say in his first lecture, entitled “The World, Satire and Me: Who’s Laughing Now?” In it, the venerable Professor remarks that comedy is the sole purpose of satire. Nothing more, nothing less.

As professional entertainers, writers must always ensure the audience understands exactly what is stated firmly on the page. Leave the learning to the lectures.

And this is precisely why Professor Scout is so thrilled to begin his new position. After years (and years) of toiling away as nothing more than a court jester, he is proud to finally join the ranks of real academia. 

*Campus Scout writes opinion-based, satirical stories and uses fictional sourcing.*

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