Inno-venting a funding solution

We can do way more with departmental amalgamation

The recent student concern over the amalgamation of departments is understandable but perhaps directed toward the wrong problem. The process that the departmental amalgamation is taking is actually exactly what angry students want – a cutting of administration by reducing service staff to each department. With one department where there once was two, only one secretary will be needed to service what remains of the departments once their professors retire and have their positions vapourized through attrition.

For example, while the department of philosophy and history will become one, that does not mean students will be getting a new degree in philosophical history or historical philosophy. It just means they will be sharing limited resources while also sharing an office and a secretary. This is clearly an innovative way to spark humanities-based sitcoms to compete with The Big Bang Theory while also reducing administrative overhead costs.

The real problem I have with these amalgamations, though, is that they are not innovative or creative enough. Philosophy and history are different, but admittedly if you had to force two departments to share an office, there are less obvious choices that could have been made.

My suggestion, then, for my own Department of History, is a very literal merger with the Department of Physics. This does not mean simply sharing an office and an administrative staff, but actually merging the programs together to create something absolutely new, innovative, creative, inno-ventive, energetic, and synergetic.

This new degree will obviously be a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Temporal Engineering, or in laymen’s terms, a degree in time travel. Think of it: history students are always looking to find out what happened in the past. Physicists are always looking for ways to understand and manipulate scientific laws to help humanity. Together, physicists and historians could strive toward creating a time machine that would help historians do their work more thoroughly and allow physicists the opportunity to discover more about the nature of time and space. It’s the perfect marriage.

Such an amalgamation would put the University of Regina at the forefront of research into time travel and make national headlines, boosting our reputation as a university that is boldly going in its own unique direction. And maybe with this bold research we can go back to a time when we weren’t in this financial shithouse.

Edward Dodd
Innovention Engineer