Dear Orange Friends,

I bet you’re wondering what this one is about. Will it be spotlighting random achievements of university individuals that I’m not even sure how I met? Will it be addressing a real issue, either on the campus or in the country? Or will it be crowd favorite, like deer or bear?

No, this email is unlike any other while simultaneously being completely like every other. Some may wonder how this is possible. Well, to take it out of the riddle I have presented it in, I have decided to give you the infamous secret formula to my “Dear Orange Friends” emails.

First, I start off with my signature opening. I never stray because people need to have something they can rely on. The world is so unsure and overwhelming, I like to think my welcomes are the equivalent of someone offering up their open arms before a tight embrace. Then they charge $60,000 a year and don’t tell the other person where their money is going. That was humor — there are obviously campus planning meetings every few weeks that no one attends, despite my emails. I often try to act like the lack of attendance does not phase me, but to Ruth, I cry. Do you not want to be my friend?

I then go into my opening paragraph. I try to always make an incredibly grand statement about something incredibly mundane — like, “I am just like the students who think they have figured out the world while smoking out in the graveyard behind Centennial Hall.” It’s important to use powerful words here — “true,” “promise,” “promenade.”

Even more important than the strong verbiage should be the completely jumbled message. You never want to actually say anything because words can be used against you. I did teach law, after all. You want pretty words, strong words, words, words, words. But the second you start making statements, well, that’s when you have students staging a sit-in in your office building during your first semester.

The final necessary ingredient is a reassuring pat on the back, to follow through with my rather inspired metaphor of yester-paragraph. It’s important to close vague emails with the reassurance that this campus — these people — are inherently good, despite the fact that I wake up to the sounds of daily fraternity parties echoing down Comstock sometime around midnight. It is usually then when I look out my window and think, “These rich boys are the same boys whose donations come graduation will fund my next promenade.” My entire Campus Framework Plan is held in the balance of fragile masculinity. But they keep donating. And that’s how I know people are inherently good and that we will be just fine — until the next email.

Sincerely,

Kent Syverud

Patty Terhune is a senior policy studies and television, radio and film dual major. She hopes Chancellor Syverud is doing well. The Lucky email made her tear up. Follow her on Twitter @pattyterhune or reach her at paterhun@syr.edu.

Published on February 1, 2017 at 10:07 pm