New Graduate Student Recruiting Initiative Arrives at DoD

We here at the DoD have somehow secured funding for a new effort at marketing our graduate program.  The university, as many know, has recently stepped up its own marketing efforts, the finest result of which is the new university motto, appearing on t-shirts, beer cozies, and stationary everywhere:

Out Standing in the Field of Excellence

It’s true that the English Department was dismayed by the inadvertent error in rendering outstanding as out  standing.  But we here in the DoD are enamored of this pithy accidental poetry and indeed often find ourselves out standing in fields of all sorts.  We doubt we have ever stumbled into the field of excellence, but we do live in hope.

Taking our inspiration from the university and taking the money they offered too, we have resolved to up our own game at marketing the graduate program.  We hired professional academic motto consultant, Stephen Ellis.  His sartorial choices – overalls that had seen better days – immediately convinced us that here was a consultant we could trust.  And indeed, Ellis delivered the goods.  The motto, like ourselves, manages to be happily wordy and yet indefinite all at the same time.  We are pleased and offer it here for your delectation:

We would like to think that we’re not so closed-minded

as to screw up our graduate students in the usual way.

The DoD has begun inscribing the motto on anything that does not move.  Physical plant is unhappy with our use of Sharpies to write it all over the bathroom walls, but we are undeterred in our efforts.  The DoD has also, naturally, notified the Grad Studies Committee to brace themselves for what will surely be a flood of applications.