Talking with a colleague about graduate school — he had briefly imagined that the first seminar paper he heard presented was satirical but was dismayed to discover otherwise — reminded me of one of academia’s missed opportunities.

One of my professors in Syracuse’s English department, the late John Diehl, once suggested that it should be sufficient to earn a Ph.D. to select a previously approved dissertation in the field, duplicate the research, demonstrate conclusively the worthlessness of the dissertation, and destroy all extant copies.

Thus two people would hold the credential, which was the main thing both had been aiming for anyhow, and the shelves of university libraries would be gradually cleared of rubbish.

It may not be too late to put this noble inspiration into practice.