Kanye Explodes as Harvard Taps Insider for Next Prez

HIDDEN HILLS, California.  Miles Normandy, a seismologist at the University of California-Northridge, could be forgiven if he assumed that a sizable earth tremor felt here yesterday–4.9 on the Richter scale–was the beginning of the so-called “Big One” that Californians have feared for many years.  “Several of my numerous academic awards fell over in my trophy case,” he notes.  “I could only conclude that it was either the end of life on the Pacific coast as we know it, or else Kanye West had failed to win some cheesy music industry award.”

“Tufts?  Tufts is a goddamn safety school!”

Normandy was off, but not by much.  What triggered the mini-quake was the announcement by Harvard University that Lawrence Bacow, currently president of Tufts University, had been nominated for the position of 29th President of Harvard University, sending West, who lives in a $20 million mansion nearby, into a fury of seismic proportions.  “This is bullshit, man,” West tweeted to his 28,763,429 followers.  “Whoever heard of a search committee picking somebody on the search committee!”

Bacow was a member of the search committee for the position, and his resume is relatively thin compared to West’s, according to several recruiting firms that serve the higher education community.  “Yes, he is currently President of Tufts University and holds degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Law School and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government,” notes Natalie Fishbein of Milson/Lampu Academic Search Consultants, “but he’s never won a Grammy award and is virtually unknown in the world of fashion design, so Harvard is taking a real risk here.”

Bacow:  “Who says I have no sense of fashion?”

Academic search committees are not bound by external codes of ethics, answering only to the institution they serve, but it is highly unusual for an institution to select a candidate from the members of such an ad hoc body due to the appearance of a conflict of interest.  “This is just like that time Taylor Swift won the Best Female Video award in 2009,” said West, who disrupted the MTV Music Video Awards that year.  “If I gotta go crazy at the 367th Harvard Commencement Exercises in May, I’m gonna do it.”

“Who do you think you are, Neil Rudenstine?”

West has compared himself to Jesus Christ and Moses, which are generally considered less prestigious offices than the Presidency of Harvard.  The search committee’s recommendation will now be sent to the university’s Academic Affairs Committee, which will forward it to the Governance Committee if it concurs in the search committee’s recommendation.  The Governance Committee would then lateral the matter to the Board of Overseers, who will catch the defense by surprise and hit the President and Fellows of Harvard College in the end zone for a game-winning touchdown.

Godzilla–or Kanye?

West has few awards left to conquer in a dazzling career that has seen him named twice as one of the most influential people in the world by Time, a non-influential weekly magazine.  “I’m gonna have to reconsider my career path,” West said in response to an inquiry to his publicist.  “When is the next election for Pope?”