FM Imagines: How to Resign From Harvard

Wondering how to resign from your lucrative tenured position? FM gives you an easy, fill-in-the-blank how-to guide.

Dear______ (department head who does not know my name/students whose names I do not know/Drew Gilpin Faust),

I am bursting with ______ (money/excitement/an air of orotund pompousness) to inform you that I have accepted a ______ (higher paid/warmer/more markedly propitious) position ______ (at Stanford/on Jupiter/let’s be honest, at Stanford). I plan to leave at the end of ______ (yesterday/this month/this year).

I have enjoyed my time in the ______ (wealthy/teeth-chatteringly freezing/academically puissant) paradise that is Harvard. I will miss ______ (the paycheck/that fun little game of will-the-temperature-dip-below-zero-today/lassitude and torpor that permeates the pulchritudinous campus) most of all. But it is time for me to move on to bigger and ______ (warmer/warmer/warmer) adventures.

In my new position, I plan to ______ (write books/sunbathe/teach the jejune minds and risible “intellects” found amongst today’s youth).

If you ever find yourself in my neck of the woods, please ______ (do not contact me/let me know/text me at the last minute so I have a decent excuse not to answer).

Yours,
______ (professor/humanitarian/deity)