"Tsk, tsk!" she shook her head at Gramsci. "You'd think someone somewhere would spot that the address was a Campus address, and realise that they're squeezing blood from a turnip here. Surely you address calls for cash to those that have it to give, not those about whom you have hard evidence of their financial situation?"
Gramsci chuckled. He'd heard the anecdotes about the conference delegates on Durban beachfront who, when approached by the child sex workers, admitted that they were academics, and were told sympathetically, "never mind, we know you don't have the money".
"You could always make a donation in kind," he suggested. "Inform them that you're contracted to work 37.5 hours per week, and tell them to consider the additional hours you work your contribution to their fundraising efforts!"
The Cow paused. It would be possible, she supposed, to work out her hourly rate and put a pricetag on that, but she'd have to wait until she was in overtime to do that so as not to be seen to be abusing the University's paid time in doing so. The beancounters who ran things were rather picky that way.
"Still," she remarked, "it's nice to see that the slogan has improved. 'Changing minds. Changing Futures' is a lot better than 'Changing minds. Changing Histories' as the 175th anniversary asserted. The underlying assumption behind the 175th was revisionist enough as it was, without compounding it by such a heinous slogan."
Gramsci nodded. "Yes," he agreed, "you don't want parents forewarned that this is a Chinese-style re-education camp, however attractive that idea might be to the State."
The Cow blanched. "Let's not give them any ideas!" she muttered hastily. "We already have Kwality Assurance seeking to beancount everything. Next we'll have to have our course outlines, our handouts, and our lecture scripts signed off by some bureaucracy after vetting for ideological appropriateness. And videotapes of our classes compared with those to ensure that nothing unapproved snuck in."
But Gramsci was still pondering the new slogan. "I wonder who convinced the author to change it?" he asked. "None of the criticism seemed to be heard, first time around."
"Who knows?" the Cow shrugged. "Maybe he simply changed his mind?"
Gramsci conceded the point. "And no doubt his history, too!" he added.