Vice Chancellor Quotes

Even Confined children deserve a chane of life. That's why there's a retrial on their eighteenth birthday. - The Chancellor You know none of them will be pardoned. We can't afford the resources - -Vice Chancellor RHodes

The doors of opportunity flung wide

Books are wonderful, aren't they?' she said to the vice-chancellor who concurred. 'At the risk of sounding like a piece of steak,' she said, 'they tenderise one.

Before 9/11, I thought that tragedy had the potential to connect us with humanity in ways that prosperity does not. I thought that if prosperity tends to isolate, tragedy must connect. Now I realize that this is not always the case. One unfortunate response to tragedy is a self-righteousness about one’s own condition, a seeking proof of one’s special place in the world, even in victimhood. One afternoon, I shared these thoughts with a new colleague, the Israeli vice chancellor of the Budapest-based Central European University. When he told me that he was a survivor of Auschwitz, I asked him what lesson he had drawn from this great crime. He explained that, like all victims of Auschwitz, he, too, had said, “Never again.” In time, though, he had come to realize that this phrase lent itself to two markedly different conclusions: one was that never again should this happen to my people; the other that it should never again happen to any people. Between these two interpretations, I suggest nothing less than our common survival is at stake.

When Anthony graduated from his preclinical training with first-class honors and a university medal, it was Mr. Llewellyn he invited to sit beside Eleanor and his parents to watch him receive his degree. As the vice chancellor delivered his rousing speech about manhood and duty—“If a man cannot be useful to his country, he is better dead”—Mr.

DODD, PAPEN’S MARBURG SPEECH seemed a marker of what he had long believed—that Hitler’s regime was too brutal and irrational to last. Hitler’s own vice-chancellor had spoken out

I’ll feel, therefore I’ll be. Let poverty go begging and climate change braise in hell. Social justice can drown in ink. I’ll be an activist of the emotions, a loud, campaigning spirit fighting with tears and sighs to shape institutions around my vulnerable self. My identity will be my precious, my only true possession, my access to the only truth. The world must love, nourish and protect it as I do. If my college does not bless me, validate me and give me what I clearly need, I’ll press my face into the vice chancellor’s lapels and weep. Then demand his resignation.

When he was Vice-Chancellor at Warwick University, the biologist Sir Brian Follett remarked: 'I don't like scientists on my committees. You don't know where they'll stand on any issue. Give them some more data, and they change their minds!' He understood the joke: most politicians wouldn't even realise it was a joke.

Rounding the corner at Haste, the crowd rushed toward People’s Park, smashing through the fence and sweeping across the lawn, attacking construction vehicles, slashing tires and seat cushions, knocking out glass. Down came the work lights. They kicked in the door to Nestor Arriola’s trailer and ransacked it. They scaled the remaining trees to take up residence. I didn’t witness any of it. I was sitting onstage in the silent auditorium, squinting in the direction of the light booth. The glare made it impossible to tell if UC Berkeley executive vice chancellor George Greenspan was in there. Just in case, I waved and gave him a thumbs-up. Judy Bronson shifted to face me. The creak of her chair leather carried clear to the back of the room. Zellerbach Hall has world-class acoustics. She said, “What just happened.” I said, “Berkeley.

TO DODD, PAPEN’S REMARK ranked as one of the most idiotic he had heard since his arrival in Berlin. And he had heard many. An odd kind of fanciful thinking seemed to have bedazzled Germany, to the highest levels of government. Earlier in the year, for example, Göring had claimed with utter sobriety that three hundred German Americans had been murdered in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia at the start of the past world war. Messersmith, in a dispatch, observed that even smart, well-traveled Germans will “sit and calmly tell you the most extraordinary fairy tales.” Now here was the nation’s vice-chancellor claiming not to understand why the United States had entered the world war against Germany. Dodd looked at Papen. “I can tell you that,” he said, his voice just as level and even as before. “It was through the sheer, consummate stupidity of German diplomats.” Papen looked stunned. His wife, according to Sigrid Schultz, looked strangely pleased. A new silence filled the table—not one of anticipation, as before, but a charged emptiness—until suddenly everyone sought to fill the chasm with flecks of diverting conversation. In another world, another context, it would have been a minor incident, a burst of caustic banter readily forgotten. Amid the oppression and Gleichschaltung of Nazi Germany, however, it was something far more important and symbolic.

Both of you are going to suffer. If you give in first, Kereseth, you will tell me what you know about the fated chancellor of Thuvhe. And if you give in first, Cyra, you will tell me what you know about the renegades, and their connections to the exile colony.” Ryzek glanced at Vas. “Go ahead.” I braced myself for a blow, but it didn’t come. Instead, Vas grabbed my wrist, and forced my hand toward Akos. At first I let it happen, sure my touch wouldn’t affect him. But then I remembered--Ryzek had said to see if Akos was “weak enough.” That meant they had been starving him for the days I had been in the prison; they had weakened his body, and his gift. I strained against Vas’s vice-hand, but I wasn’t strong enough. My knuckles brushed Akos’s face. The shadows crept toward him, even as I silently begged them not to move. But I was not their master. I never had been. Akos moaned, his own brother holding him in place as he tried to flinch away. “Excellent. It worked,” Ryzek said, coming to his feet. “The chancellor of Thuvhe, Kereseth. Tell me about her.” I pulled my elbow back as hard as I could, twisting and thrashing in Vas’s grip. The shadows grew richer and more numerous the more I struggled, like they were mocking me. Vas was strong, and there was nothing I could do to him now; he held me steady with one hand and pushed my palm forward with the other, so it lay flat against Akos’s throat. I could imagine nothing more horrible than this, Ryzek’s Scourge turned against Akos Kereseth. I felt the heat of him. The pain inside me was desperate to be shared; it moved into him, but instead of diminishing in my own body the way it usually did, it only multiplied in us both. My arm shook from the effort of trying to pull away. Akos screamed, and so did I, so did I. I was dark with the current, the center of a black hole, a shred of the starless fringe of the galaxy. Every inch of me burned, ached, begged for relief. Akos’s voice and mine met like two clasped hands. I closed my eyes.

Yes, education destroys. Twenty-five years continuously, from the kindergarten to the postgraduate courses in university, it goes on destroying in you whatsoever is beautiful and aesthetic. The lotus is crushed under scholarship, the rose is murdered by the so-called professors, teachers, vice-chancellors, chancellors.

Vice Chancellor Quillen’s words echo in my mind as I bow my head against the driving wind and hurry through the torchlit University streets. I pull my cloak taut, no

This earth carries aboard it many ordinary passengers; and it carries, also, a few very important ones. It is hard to know which people are, or were, or will be which. Great men may come to the door in carpet-slippers, their faces like those of kindly or fretful old dogs, and not even know that they are better than you; a friend meets you after fifteen years and the Nobel Prize, and he is sadder and fatter and all the flesh in his face has slumped an inch nearer the grave, but otherwise he is as of old. They are not very important people. On the other hand, the president of your bank, the Vice-Chancellor of the—no, not of the Reich, but of the School of Agriculture of the University of Wyoming: these, and many Princes and Powers and Dominions, are very important people; the quality of their voices has changed, and they speak more distinctly from the mounds upon which they stand, making sure that their voices come down to you. The very important are different from us. Yes, they have more everything. They are spirits whom that medium, the world, has summoned up just as she has the rest of us, but there is in them more soul-stuff, more ego—the spirit of Gog or Magog has been summoned. There is too much ectoplasm: it covers the table, moves on toward the laps of the rest of us, already here, sitting around the table on straight chairs, holding one another's hands in uneasy trust. We push back our chairs, our kinship breaks up like a dream: it is as if there were no longer Mankind, but only men.

appointed vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, calculated that God made the world on October 23, 4004 BC, but he was able to further refine Ussher’s arithmetic, proving that God got started at exactly 9:00 that morning, presumably after His breakfast.

Respected academic Jonathan Jansen, the inspirational rector and vice chancellor of the University of the Free State, once said that not a single minister in our Cabinet takes their child to a public school.11 He is correct. Why? All those politicians know that most government schools in South Africa – except for a handful – are nothing short of dire.

Diane Louise Jordan Diane Louise Jordan is a British television presenter best known for her role in the long-running children’s program Blue Peter, which she hosted from 1990 until 1996. She is currently hosting BBC1’s religious show, Songs of Praise. Also noted for her charity work, Diane Louise Jordan is vice president of the National Children’s Home in England. When in late 1997 I was invited by the Right Honorable Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to sit on the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Committee, I was clueless as to why I’d been chosen. I was in the middle of a filming assignment in the United States when the call came through. Sitting on the bed in my New York hotel room, still with the receiver in my hand after agreeing to the chancellor’s request, I kept asking myself, “Why me?” The rest of the committee seemed to me to be high fliers of great influence or closely related to her. I was neither. I didn’t fit. But, perhaps, that’s the point. A lot of us think we don’t fit, don’t believe we’re up to much. Yet the truth is we’re all part of something big, and we’re all capable of inspiring others to be the best that they can be. This is what Princess Diana believed. The Princess influenced and inspired many through her life, and now I had an opportunity to be part of something that ensured her influence would continue. It was out responsibility as the Memorial Committee to sift through more than ten thousand suggestions by the British public to find an appropriate memorial to the life and work of the Princess. It was unanimously felt that the memorial should have lasting impact and reflect the many facets of Diana, so we came up with four commemorative projects: the Diana Nurses, a commemorative 5 pound coin, projects in the Royal Parks, and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Award, for young people between the ages of eleven and eighteen. The Diana Award, as it is now known, was set up to acknowledge and support the achievements of young people throughout Britain. Each year the award is given to individuals or groups who have made an outstanding contribution to their community by improving the lives of others, especially the more vulnerable, or by enhancing the communities in which they live. The Diana Award is also given to those who’ve shown exemplary progress in personal development, particularly if it involves overcoming adversity. I’ve been associated with the Diana Award since it was established in 1999. And now, as a trustee, I’m extremely honored to be further involved, as I believe that the award holders are a living part of the late Princess’s legacy. They represent the kind of brave, caring, idealistic values Diana admired and championed. Like the late Princess, this award simply shines a light on what is already there, already being achieved. It’s as if Diana herself is telling the recipients how fantastic they are. The Princess said her job was to love people, and through this award she is still doing that. Recently, I was at an award holders ceremony. I was overwhelmed to be in an environment surrounded by beautiful young people committed to wanting the best. Like Princess Diana, they all demonstrate, in their individual ways, that when we strive to do our best, whether by overcoming personal adversity or contributing to the well-being of others, it changes us for the better. We see a glimpse of how we could all be if, like Diana, we have the courage to expose our hearts.

] The real trouble is not the mere difference of opinion, as between one scholar and another, but the fact that Graves (like myself) refuses to treat his subject as dead. A scholar only feels secure if he is sure that the subject of his study is not one day going to get up and look him between the eyes; and nothing could be in worse taste than a suggestion that anything more is required of him than a chaste rational disinterestedness. Both the Buddha and the White Goddess, it is felt, have been safely dead these two thousand years and more, and the professors of these subjects congratulate themselves on having chosen such admirably extinct fields of study. (Quite the last thing that a professor of Buddhism would dream of doing is to profess Buddhism—that is left to mere amateurs like myself.) But what happens? Here comes Graves and myself shouting out one, that you cannot know the Goddess unless you worship her—and in the flesh, to boot (or, should I say, to buskin?)—, and, the other, that you cannot understand the Buddha unless you practise his teaching—in the jungle, preferably, and barefoot. If I have my way, these comfortable scholars will have to exchange the fleshpots of Oxford for the almsbowl of India; and if Graves has his, their dutiful wives will become Bassarids, dancing naked with Dionysian fury on Boar's Hill, and tearing the Vice-Chancellor to pieces and devouring him raw at the summer solstice. And that would never do, would it?

vice-chancellor’s

SO BRAZIL’S PRESIDENT FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO, GERMANY’S Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer, Sweden’s Lena Hjelm-Wallén, and Chile’s Ricardo Lagos are not just complaining gratuitously from a position of power and privilege. The power of their lofty government jobs is indeed ebbing, and not to the benefit of a particular rival politician or organization that they can counter, buy off, or shut down.

So who is the woman who excites Diana’s feelings? From the moment photographs of Camilla fluttered from Prince Charles’s diary during their honeymoon to the present day, the Princess of Wales has understandably harboured every kind of suspicion, resentment and jealousy about the woman Charles loved and lost during his bachelor days. Camilla is from sturdy county stock with numerous roots in the aristocracy. She is the daughter of Major Bruce Shand, a well-to-do wine merchant, Master of Fox Hounds and the Vice Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex. Her brother is the adventurer and author Mark Shand, who was once an escort of Bianca Jagger and model Marie Helvin, and is now married to Clio Goldsmith, niece of the grocery millionaire. Camilla is related to Lady Elspeth Howe, wife of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the millionaire builder, Lord Ashcombe. Her great-grandmother was Alice Keppel who for many years was the mistress of another Prince of Wales, Edward VII. She was married to a serving Army officer and once said that her job was to “curtsey first--and then leap into bed.

If in the end Erso’s research moves us closer to engineering a weapon for the battle station, then you will have not only my gratitude, but also that of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and the Republic itself.” Krennic restrained a smile. “We all play our part, Vice Chancellor.

Got himself fired for pulling a sword on an acknowledged perp. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp’s shirt, gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck, and pinned him to a warped and bubbled expanse of vinyl siding on the wall of the house that the perp was trying to break into. Thought it was a pretty righteous bust. But they fired him anyway because the perp turned out to be the son of the vice-chancellor of the Farms of Merryvale. Oh, the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol. Said that he had violated the SPAC, the Suspected Perpetrator Apprehension Code. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. They said that he had exposed them to liability. The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. Had to borrow it from the Mafia, in fact. So he’s in their database now—retinal patterns, DNA, voice graph, fingerprints, footprints, palm prints, wrist prints, every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it—almost—those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer. But it’s their money—sure they’re careful about loaning it out. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him, because they knew him. When he got the loan, he had to deal personally with the assistant vice-capo of the Valley, who later recommended him for the Deliverator job. So it was like being in a family. A really scary, twisted, abusive family. CosaNostra

The Uttarakhand BJP president declared similarly that pregnant women could avoid caesarean deliveries if they drank water from a river in the state.94 Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself claimed that India invented reproductive genetics and plastic surgery. In October 2014, he told a gathering of doctors and other professionals at a hospital in Mumbai: “We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realize that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb. . . . We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.”95 Remarks such as these were met each time with protestation from “rationalists,” a category of intellectuals often affiliated with the communist Left. Three of them, known for their criticism of Hindu nationalist sectarianism and obscurantism, were murdered between 2013 and 2015: Narendra Dabholkar, the founder of the Maharashtra Blind Faith Eradication Committee; Govind Pansare, a long-standing member of the Indian Communist Party; and M. M. Kalburgi, former vice-chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi96 (see chapter 7). For obscurantists (whether they belong to a religious sect or an ethnonationalist movement), rationalists are key targets because they are viewed as blasphemers and pose a threat to their belief system by exposing the myths in which they believe.

The Crusade against “Liberals” Promotion of Hinduism went hand in hand with an incessant fight against “liberals,” a highly derogatory term in the mouths of Hindu nationalists, which they use to refer to academics, NGOs, and journalists that do not adhere to their ideology. Bringing Universities to Heel—the Case of Jawaharlal Nehru University Universities with a “progressive” reputation have long been a Hindu nationalist target, but tensions further intensified after 2014. They have been subjected to two types of interference. First, the government appointed men from the Sangh Parivar or fellow travelers to head them with the task of reforming them. Second, the RSS student wing, the ABVP, could finally try to call the shots on university campuses with the government’s blessing. This dual strategy is most clearly apparent in the treatment inflicted on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). This institution, known for the excellence of its teachers—especially in the social sciences—had drawn bitter Hindu nationalist criticism as soon as it was founded in the 1960s due to the leftist leanings of many teachers and some of its main student organizations.97 In 2016, the Modi government appointed Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar vice-chancellor of JNU. This electrical engineering professor had been teaching at the nearby Indian Institute of Technology until then, and he had allegedly played an active role in Vijana Bharati, an organization under the Sangh Parivar umbrella that aims to promote indigenous Indian science.98 He brought about drastic budget cuts—academic spending was almost halved over three years99—and a decline in student recruitment, while systematically hampering the activities of student unions and faculty opposed to the RSS. The political disciplining of the campus took various routes, such as the harassment of professors who were openly hostile to the Sangh Parivar.

research university that primarily awards master’s degrees and PhDs, JNU saw the number of seats offered to students wishing to enroll in a master’s or a doctoral program plummet by 84 percent, from 1,234 to 194 in one year.101 Furthermore, admissions committees were made up solely of experts appointed by the JNU vice-chancellor, flouting university statutes and guidelines followed by the University Grants Commission (UGC), which stipulate that academics should be involved.102 This made it possible to hire teachers from Hindu nationalist circles,103 with few qualifications,104 and some facing charges of plagiarism.105 In particular, several former ABVP student activists from JNU have been appointed as assistant professors even after being disqualified by the committee in charge of short-listing applicants.106 The vice-chancellor replaced deans in the School of Social Sciences without following appointment procedures, cutting the number of researchers by 80 percent and ceasing to apply rules JNU had set to ensure diversity through a mechanism taking into account the social background and geographic origin of its applicants.107 The new recruitment procedure strongly disadvantaged Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs, who used to make up nearly 50 percent of the student intake and who now accounted for a mere 7 percent. The vice-chancellor also issued ad hoc promotions, nominating recently appointed faculty members to the post of full professor. Conversely, the freeze on promotions for “antigovernment” teachers who should have been promoted on the basis of seniority prompted some of the diktat’s victims to take the matter to court.108 However, even after the court—taking note of the illegality of the rejection procedure—ordered a reexamination of the claimants’ promotions, the latter were once again denied.109

As the modern era came into being, the avarice of the usurer was supplanted by interest in the broader and more abstract sense of a share or stake. This new concept of interest was ethically wide-ranging: it ‘came to cover virtually the entire range of human actions, from the narrowly self-centered to the sacrificially altruistic, and from the prudently calculated to the passionately compulsive’.49 The seventeenth-century English statesman and philosopher Lord Shaftesbury summed up the new thinking with his comment that ‘Interest governs the World.’50 In his Fable of the Bees (1714), Bernard Mandeville exposed the paradox at the heart of the modern world, namely that private vices brought public benefits. Adam Smith incorporated Mandeville’s wicked insights into his political economy. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith describes the individual as one who ‘By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.’51 A similar thought is expressed in another famous line, in which Smith writes that ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ The spirit of capitalism was transmitted across networks of credit that connected lenders and borrowers through bonds of mutual self-interest.52 Daniel Defoe described credit as a ‘stock’, synonymous with capital, while the French in Defoe’s day referred to capital as ‘interest’, in the sense of taking a stake.fn6 From a technical viewpoint, capital consists of a stream of future income discounted to its present value. Without interest, there can be no capital. Without capital, no capitalism. Turgot, a contemporary of Adam Smith’s, understood this very well: ‘the capitalist lender of money,’ he wrote, ‘ought to be considered as a dealer in a commodity which is absolutely necessary for the production of wealth, and which cannot be at too low a price.’53 (Turgot exaggerated. As we shall see, interest at ‘too low a price’ is the source of many evils.)

deaf president now Most of you have probably seen the phrase, but what do you know about the “Deaf President Now” movement? Despite being the first Deaf university in the world, Gallaudet had never had a Deaf president before, and in March 1988 that was finally about to change. The Board of Trustees was slated to choose the next president from a list of three finalist candidates, two Deaf, one hearing. In the lead-up to the board meeting, students and faculty had been campaigning and rallying in support of a Deaf president. THE CANDIDATES DR. ELIZABETH ZINSER, hearing, Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs at University of North Carolina DR. HARVEY CORSON, Deaf, Superintendent of the Louisiana School for the Deaf DR. I. KING JORDAN, Deaf, Dean of College of Arts and Sciences at Gallaudet On March 6th, the board selected Zinser. No announcement was made. Students found out only after visiting the school’s PR office to extract the information. Students marched to the Mayflower hotel to confront the Board. Chair Jane Spilman defended the selection to the crowd, reportedly saying, “deaf people can’t function in the hearing world.” WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? MARCH 7TH: Students hot-wire buses to barricade campus gates, only allowing certain people on campus. Students meet with Board, no concessions made. Protesters march to the Capitol. MARCH 8TH: Students burn effigies, form a 16-member council of students, faculty, and staff to organize the movement. THE FOUR DEMANDS: Zinser’s resignation and the selection of a Deaf president Resignation of Jane Spilman A 51% Deaf majority on the Board of Trustees No reprisals against protesters WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? MARCH 9TH: Movement grows, gains widespread national support. Protest is featured on ABC’s Nightline. MARCH 10TH: Jordan, who’d previously conceded to Zinser’s appointment, joins the protests, saying “the four demands are justified.” Protests receive endorsements from national unions and politicians. DEAF PRESIDENT NOW! MARCH 10TH: Zinser resigns. MARCH 11TH: 2,500 march on Capitol Hill, bearing a banner that says “We still have a dream.” MARCH 13: Spilman resigns, Jordan is announced president. Protesters receive no punishments, DPN is hailed as a success and one of the precursors to the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

If there is a job for me in the Indian government, it is the 'President of India' and if there is a job for me in Tamil Nadu, it is the 'Vice-Chancellor', deal this or don't deal me

For many years, Larkin was university librarian at Hull University’s Brynmor Jones Library. When Larkin first met a new vice chancellor there, the VC asked for the library’s payroll/non-payroll breakdown. ‘Mind your own fucking business’ was the poet’s muffled reply.

As an adult, and as a poet of deprivation and ‘being on the edge of things’, Larkin championed public and university libraries. Though sympathetic to Toryism, he came to oppose the 1980s trends—new public management and neo-classical economics—that were antithetical to libraries. For many years, Larkin was university librarian at Hull University’s Brynmor Jones Library. When Larkin first met a new vice chancellor there, the VC asked for the library’s payroll/non-payroll breakdown. ‘Mind your own fucking business’ was the poet’s muffled reply. Larkin served on the board of the British Library, but resigned because of the early starts, and because the ‘fire-trap’ meeting room gave him claustrophobia.

Hitler’s electoral success—far greater than Mussolini’s—allowed him more autonomy in bargaining with the political insiders whose help he needed to reach office. Even more than in Italy, as German governmental mechanisms jammed after 1930, responsibility for finding a way out narrowed to a half-dozen men: President Hindenburg, his son Oskar and other intimate advisors, and the last two Weimar chancellors, Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher. At first they tried to keep the uncouth Austrian ex-corporal out. One must recall that in the 1930s cabinet ministers were still supposed to be gentlemen. Bringing raw fascists into government was a measure of their desperation. The Catholic aristocrat Franz von Papen tried as chancellor (July– November 1932) to govern without politicians, through a so-called Cabinet of Barons composed of technical experts and nonpolitical eminences. His gamble at holding national elections in July let the Nazis become the largest party. Von Papen then tried to bring Hitler in as vice chancellor, a position without authority, but the Nazi leader had enough strategic acumen and gambler’s courage to accept nothing but the top office. This path forced Hitler to spend the tense fall of 1932 in an agony of suspenseful waiting, trying to quiet his restless and office-hungry militants while he played for all or nothing. Hoping to deepen the crisis, the Nazis (like the Fascists before them) increased their violence, carefully choosing their targets. The apogee of Nazi street violence in Germany came after June 16, 1932, when Chancellor von Papen lifted the ban on SA uniforms that Brüning had imposed in April. During several sickening weeks, 103 people were killed and hundreds were wounded. Von Papen’s expedient of new elections on November 6 diminished the Nazi vote somewhat (the communists gained again), but did nothing to extract Germany from constitutional deadlock. President Hindenburg replaced him as chancellor on December 2 with a senior army officer regarded as more technocratic than reactionary, General Kurt von Schleicher. During his brief weeks in power (December 1932–January 1933), Schleicher prepared an active job-creation program and mended relations with organized labor. Hoping to obtain Nazi neutrality in parliament, he flirted with Gregor Strasser, head of the party administration and a leader of its anticapitalist current (Hitler never forgot and never forgave Strasser’s “betrayal”). At this point, Hitler was in serious difficulty. In the elections of November 6, his vote had dropped for the first time, costing him his most precious asset—momentum. The party treasury was nearly empty. Gregor Strasser was not the only senior Nazi who, exhausted by Hitler’s all ornothing strategy, was considering other options. The Nazi leader was rescued by Franz von Papen. Bitter at Schleicher for taking his place, von Papen secretly arranged a deal whereby Hitler would be chancellor and he, von Papen, deputy chancellor—a position from which von Papen expected to run things. The aged Hindenburg, convinced by his son and other intimate advisors that Schleicher was planning to depose him and install a military dictatorship, and convinced by von Papen that no other conservative option remained, appointed the Hitler–von Papen government on January 30, 1933. Hitler, concluded Alan Bullock, had been “hoist” into office by “a backstairs conspiracy.

Then, the women left the theater to change out of their ordinary academic garb and into bachelor of arts gowns hooded with white fur. Thus attired, they returned and knelt before the vice-chancellor. He touched each woman on the head with the Holy Gospels—revealing his nerves only once, when he accidentally tapped one woman with his own mortarboard instead of the scriptures. At last the deed was done, with the Latin words pronounced in the ceremony for the first time in the feminine gender: domina, magistra.7 Some fifty women received degrees that day.

The vice chancellor announced that all evening classes were cancelled and everyone had to be indoors by 9 p.m. This did not make much sense to me, since the shooting happened in sparkling daylight