Educatio Interretiālis Delenda Est

Address to the Regents of Enema U by Marcus Porcus Magnus Cato, College Professor of Eternal Annoyance

Regents, honored guests, and those who wandered in here mistaking this for the free-coffee room, I rise today with a matter so urgent, so grave, so corrosive to the very soul of learning, that I must speak plainly.
Perhaps too plainly for some.

Ergo, educatio interretiālis delenda est.  (Distance education must be destroyed.)

Yes, yes — I hear your murmurs.  “Cato, this is the budget meeting.”
“Cato, we’re discussing parking policy.”  “Cato, the cheese has slid off your panis.”  “Cato, please stop using the lectern as a siege engine.”

But I tell you, Regents: while you squabble about parking lots, renovations, consultant fees, and the sixth rebranding of this institution in ten years…

Behold!  At the gates stands our true enemy — a shapeless, digital barbarian, armed not with swords but with discussion boards.

Educatio interretiālis.  (Distance education.)

Hear me, Regents, every issue we face — enrollment, retention, adjunct salaries that would embarrass a Roman slave market — ALL of them pale beside the looming shadow of the Carthaginian menace that is distance education.

Consider Canvas.  You ask why it crashes during finals week.  I ask: Have you checked for Punic sabotage?

Consider our latest strategic plan — the one written by fourteen consultants over eighteen months.  Impressive? No.  Not until we inscribe at its heart the timeless directive:

Ergo, educatio interretiālis delenda est.  (Distance education must be destroyed.)

Regents! We cannot move forward while that ancient foe — symbolic, metaphorical, possibly located in Facilities & Services — remains standing.

You ask me, “Professor Cato, what exactly is Carthage?”  Is it administrative bloat?  Is it the parking garage that has been under construction since the Peloponnesian War?  Is it the HVAC system in Breland Hall, which wheezes like a dying centurion?

Yes.  It is all of these and the specter that destroys all of education.  Distance education — in every form — must be destroyed.

Consider, Regents:  You say, “Students are busy!  Students have jobs!”  But I say: So did Roman legionaries, and they still managed to attend lectures, build aqueducts, and conquer Gaul in their free time.

You say, “Online classes create flexibility.”  I say: So does a circus contortionist, and no one asks him to teach Western Civ.

You say, “Enrollment increases with online options.  I say: Yes, but so does plagiarism, ghostwriting, and Canvas messages that begin with. “Hey prof, I didn’t know the class had started.”

In my day, Regents, learning required:  A classroom, a teacher, and scrolls.  Now students attend on their phones while driving.  Papers appear that are clearly written by a chatbot trained on the collective works of simpletons.  Half the class takes exams from the Starbucks parking lot.

This is not education.  This is academic DoorDash.

When I gaze upon this thing you call Zoom, I tremble — not from fear, but from disgust.  Shall I now teach the youth of New Mexico not with scrolls, nor with voice, nor with the piercing glare that once cowed senators and barbarians alike — but through a tiny square on a flickering screen?

Behold the horrors:

·       Students appear as shadows, ghosts, or black rectangles that speak only when startled.

·       Half the class arrives unwashed, unshaven, and still horizontal but say their camera does not work to veil the truth.

·       Their microphones carry every dog, blender, toddler, and leaf blower within three miles.

·       And when they say, “Sorry, my Wi-Fi dropped,” the lie is so obvious the very Lares and Penates turn away in shame.

Regents, this is not discourse.  This is not education.  This is a séance conducted by incompetents.

Therefore I declare:

Zoom, delendum est.  (Zoom must be destroyed.)

Regents, open your eyes!

Have you not witnessed the spectacle of Canvas Discussions?  It is a gladiatorial arena where the dull, the desperate, and the half-awake are thrown to the lions of Participation Requirements.

Behold the scene:

·       The first student enters the arena, posting: “Great point! I totally agree!” — a thrust so weak that even the most timid Gaul would laugh.

·       Another follows with the dread phrase: “Interesting, but have you considered…?” A feint copied from the previous week’s battle.

·       A third, late to the combat, posts five replies in rapid succession, each identical:  “Yes. Also, Carthage must be destroyed.”  (In this case, I approve the sentiment.)

The instructor demands “substantial engagement.”  But these are not gladiators — they are tourists who wandered into the Colosseum expecting a gift shop.

Canvas discussions do not sharpen minds.  They do not spark rhetoric.  They do not forge scholars.  They produce only misery, procrastination, and the hollow echo of forced enthusiasm.

Therefore, Regents, I proclaim:  Canvasianos ludos delendos esse.  (The Canvas Games must be destroyed.)

Therefore, I propose:  Not moderation.  Not discussion.  Not another subcommittee that will take eighteen months to say nothing.

No.

I proclaim, in the manner of my ancestors:  Educatio interretiālis delenda est.  (Distance education must be destroyed.)

Remove it root and branch, like a Carthaginian vineyard.  Strike it from the catalog, the curriculum, the very course schedule.  Let the ash of its passing fertilize the fields of real pedagogy.

You propose asynchronous learning.  Learning without time.  Classes without classes.  Students without presence.  Responsibility without accountability.

You say it “empowers the learner.”  I say it “empowers the slothful.”

You say it allows students to study at any hour.  I say it allows them to study at no hour.

You promise that modules, videos, and quizzes will guide their minds.  But I say to you:  “Nemo discit dormiens.”  (No one learns while asleep.)

And yet behold!  In asynchronous classes, entire assignments are submitted within thirty seconds of opening.  Students submit ChatGPT essays at 3:04 a.m. with the desperation of a gladiator cornered by lions.  And the discussion boards?  Dead seas filled with forced pleasantries and hastily copied Google results.

Regents, the Faculty Senate has heard enough.

I conclude, as I always conclude, as I shall conclude at commencement, at convocation, at the ribbon-cutting for the new Taco Bell on campus.

Disciplina asynchrona delenda est.  (Asynchronous learning must be destroyed.)

And consider, Regents, the matter of the Library — our proud intellectual armory, our fortress of scrolls, our last bulwark against ignorance.  Even students on campus barely enter it; they know its location only because they must walk around it to reach the Forum cafeteria.  To them it is not a treasury of wisdom, but a geographic inconvenience on the way to chili cheese fries.

But what of the online student — the wanderer of the digital wastes, the one who never sets foot upon our campus at all?  He does not walk around the Library; he does not even know it exists. He cannot smell its books, hear its silence, or glimpse the stern busts of philosophers watching him with disappointment.

Regents, what is a university when its students never cross the threshold of its Library?  It is a school without a soul. It’s a Republic without a Senate. It’s a Rome without Rome.

Whether we speak of Zoom, of asynchronous treacheries, or of the accursed Games of Canvas, I end as I always end:

Ceterum censeo educationem interretiālem esse delendam.  (Moreover, I am of the firm opinion that distance education must be destroyed.)

Thank you.  Please validate my chariot’s parking pass.