My Very Own Symonds Ryder Moment


A few weeks ago, this Monk and newly minted PhD received a letter from the Brigham Young University English Department:


The letter invited me to join the only university led by living prophets and to teach early American literature there, but there was one problem: my (now former) address was horribly misspelled. Actually, it's a small miracle that the letter even reached me. I asked myself--how could divinely inspired leaders get my information so wrong? Shouldn't they KNOW? And then I remembered Symonds Ryder (also, infamously, Simonds Rider), who was once placed in something of a similar situation. I quickly decided that maybe spelling wasn't the most important thing, even for an English professor, and suffice to say that I'm now happily on my way to BYU.

Wahoo!

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your starving students yearning for knowledge . . .
Send these, the young, the media-addled to me,
I lift my books beneath the Y!

Comments

Unknown said…
suffice IT to say that I'm now happily dreaming of your first-day-of-class attire choice.
:)
July 31, 2010 at 2:40 PM
Jo Jo said…
I'm just glad you're there.
July 31, 2010 at 8:40 PM
Becky said…
We are so PROUD of you! :) Can't wait to see your office. How 'bout a date to it tomorrow?
August 1, 2010 at 11:17 AM
Alisa said…
oh my gosh Zach!! you're a professor at BYU?!!! How COOL is that?!! Congratulations! I'm totally impressed! My husband dreams of being a professor at BYU some day. Some day he'll go back to school, who knows when or for what, but perhaps we'll one day be there with you!:)
August 3, 2010 at 6:42 PM
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