THE HALLS OF ACADEMIA

by Mary Janicke 

Mark Welsh didn’t resign last week as president of Texas A&M because he lost the confidence of students or faculty. He resigned because politicians demanded it. And that should outrage anyone who believes universities exist to pursue knowledge rather than to appease partisans. The sequence was depressingly predictable. A children’s literature course included material about gender identity. One student objected, invoked religion and a Trump-era executive order, and complained. Instead of being a moment for education—for engaging uncomfortable ideas—the episode became a weapon. A video went viral, lawmakers pounced, and the pressure machine revved into high gear. Welsh tried to manage the firestorm. He reassigned administrators. He fired the professor. He ordered a sweeping audit of the curriculum. But it was never going to be enough.  —Cartoon and news summary by Nick Anderson, September 21, 2025

The hallowed halls now hollowed 
Academia no longer a place for ideas
Now a place for ideology
 
A professor professes inclusiveness
Is now excluded for not honoring exclusiveness
 
A president supporting his faculty
Now questioned about his faculties
 
The learning of students stifled
Because one of them felt uncomfortable
 
So academia becomes a wasteland
Where young people go to have their minds
Closed not opened

Mary Janicke is a gardener, poet, and writer living in Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her haiku appears on Substack.

FAREWELL MS. B

by Jen Schneider

Morning greetings spill through speakers, one per room - affixed to paint chipped ceilings – Good day, All - beside a single ceiling fan - in each of our building’s fifty-three rooms. Stocked with metal chairs on rusted legs, boxes of No. 2s, and books – many Requirements, more Favorites. Ferdinand and Potter. Mice and Men and Huckleberry Finn. Rosa, Ruby Bridges, and Malala, too. Most passed down for generations of classes before. Don’t consume. Critique, Ms. B. said, as she’d stock our stacks with book swap finds. Ms. B. fought hard – her 4 feet 11 inches - alerting officials – in formations six yards wide and six feet tall - at evening school board meetings – monthly. For years. Fifteen and counting. Until the counting stopped. Teach us to fight for what’s right – through the written word, library research, and careful fact-finding. 

I want to be a Teacher. And a Writer. And a Reader, Ms. B. Uncover injustice. Just like you.

Chuckling over inside jokes of hidden closets and earlier versions of ourselves from classes prior. Missing room No. 54. Did you see…? Misplaced backpacks, clear by compliance – it’s regulation. Did you hear…? Uninhabited chairs that squeak. Each room, a relic from the 1920s. Ms. B.’s magic made each home to no less than thirty-four warm bodies of all shapes and shades. 

Principal – Ms. B. - shares updates on weather – cloudy with a chance of rain – isn’t it always the case? – and schedules – extended time for third period – stomachs flutter, mandated tests, extra review – Algebra, U.S. History – with Ms. B.’s extra readings, so that we learn the truth – cells away, pencils out - no options for pass-permitted bathroom breaks – I’d rather not say why.

Always closing with words – the reason I - We – all eighteen hundred plus of us, united by zip code and respect for Ms. B. – show each day and on time.

No matter what, Remember, you are loved. Ms. B.

Static. Click. Now done. Silence. A single chair squeaks. Rubber-soled shoes shuffle. Someone coughs. With nothing more to say, we do as Ms. B. would. With space between us, we write.

Adjust elastic around ears. Reset cloth masks. Watch silent tears drop. Pick up broken No. 2s. 

We love you, too, Ms. B.

Rip sheets of lined paper from spiral notebook. Crumple, tight. Place in right front pocket. Wash.

For fifteen years and counting, kids like me would know the voice of kindness. Syllables streamed through pie-shaped speakers – tone of warm blueberry cobbler and savory chicken soup. In servings and portions perfect for all. Never too hot. Never too cold. Always just right.

Always Ms. B. 

Until now. Last week’s Board meeting was Ms. B’s final chapter. She set down her glasses, capped her blue inked pen, and returned her key. Want only to Unlock Lives and Unleash Learning, she spoke clearly. Lose No One, she continued. No One. Through tears. Confidently. With Conviction. Just like she taught us. Want only to pile on Love. 

Cannot police young bodies. Cannot risk more lives. 

Microphone off. Static. Then Silence. 

Good night, Ms. B. Good night, all.


Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Her work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, unstamatic, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals.

AFTER THE BIG QUARANTINE

by Esther Cohen

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, Westchester County, New York

Last night’s class women
who’d been in prison we write
together Tuesday nights in last night’s Zoom class
strong women they’d all been quarantined
so many years one works in a men’s homeless shelter
400 beds poor Brooklyn neighborhood men
are sick and difficult another helps with seniors
in low income housing brings them meals
tells them jokes last night they said that what they
learned being inside in a Big Quarantine
was how much we have to help each other
how much we need to love.


Esther Cohen teaches and is a cultural activist.

RIFLE CLASS, DAY AFTER A MASSACRE

by Jon Wesick




Robert Dear shoots up a Planned Parenthood clinic.
A militia takes over a wildlife refuge.
The only defense against a conservative with a gun
is a liberal with a gun
so I spend weeks in rain, hail,
and desert heat learning to shoot.

Here, on this day the screams
of the wounded are far away.
Instead hands practice the choreography
of magazine changes and malfunction clearing.
I like the rented AR-15. It’s accurate,
doesn’t kick much, and it’s loose spring
goes boing when it chambers the next round.

Hot wind sucks water from my body
and even slathered in sunscreen my face burns.
Ammo belts on women’s hips distract me.
“It’s too quiet,” the teacher says.
“All I hear is pistols next door.
Let’s show them what real firearms sound like!”
With others I center my ghost ring sight
on a gray silhouette and squeeze the trigger.
Rifles’ booms alert car alarms. Dust puffs
on the berm behind paper targets.
Hot brass flies from an ejection port,
falls down my shirt, and burns.

We sling loaded rifles over shoulders only once.
“Feel something different?” the teacher asks.
“That’s the feeling of freedom!”
I don’t feel freedom.
I feel a rifle
and a heavy responsibility

Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, author of the poetry collection Words of Power, Dances of Freedom, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published over three hundred poems in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Pearl, and Slipstream. He has also published nearly a hundred short stories. One was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest. Another had a link on the Car Talk website. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts.

SHOWING A DVD ON THE GALAPAGOS TO A NINTH GRADE CLASS

by Don Kingfisher Campbell

Some watch the projected video

of blue footed boobies

diving down like bombers

to feast on an unsuspecting school of fish

Others would rather stare

into their small lighted rectangles

to play a game, send messages

or simply check out their faces

The British narratress

twistedly intones the wonder

of sea lions snatching by the tail

swimming rock-colored iguanas

And what will become

of the fourteen-year-olds

who don’t care to take notes

on this predatory world

The gliding hawk seizes

the frantically running lizard

The bug-eyed orange crabs

pinch off pieces of wounded seagull

Are these students doomed

to be pushing paper, repairing roads

selling cars, hammering homes

stocking stores, serving plates

The volcanic islands themselves

are born in the ocean

live a few million years

sink slowly to die

Don Kingfisher Campbell’s poetry has recently been published in the anthologies Altadena Poetry Review, Like A Girl, Poems To F*ck To, San Pedro River Review, Attack of the Poems, Gutters & Alleyways, and Lummox #3; and in cyberspace on Toe Good Poetry, In-Flight Literary Magazine, Poetic Diversity, Where I Live-Silver Birch Press, One Sentence Poems, Cadence Collective, and Camel Saloon.