I arrived early that morning at the Dean's office. Wow! Here I am, brand new on the job and the man already wants to see me! Hopefully this is a good sign. His secretary sees me in. He gets up from the chair behind his desk, comes around to shake my hand and guide me to the visitor's chair across from him.
"Sit down, Dr. Moore. So glad you could come this morning. I have a special assignment for you that I want to speak to you about."
"Certainly, sir. What can I do for you.
"Dr. Moore ... may I call you Barbara? ... I want to appoint you as faculty advisor to the college's Pan-Hellenic Council.
"Barbara is fine, sir. Why me?
"Well, Dr. Moore ... I mean Barbara," he began, tenting his hands on the shiny desktop that separates us, and staring straight at the front of my shirt.
I glanced down to see whether I had left some buttons undone. Thankfully I hadn't.
"There have been some just plain reprehensible goings on in some of our Greek houses on campus lately, Barbara. You have seen the headlines, yes? Not good publicity for the institution."
"I guess I haven't been paying attention, sir."
"Well, let me get straight to the point, Dr. Moore ... I mean Barbara, he said leaning forward earnestly and pursing his lips. "Tonight is initiation night, followed by an all-night party at "ι η π", the most notorious frat house on campus. I am sending you as faculty advisor to the Pan-Hellenic Council to observe what goes on there, and report back to me. If what goes on at these things is as bad as I suspect, we may just have to ban that house as a warning to all the others."
"Again, why me, sir?"
"Because you are new on the faculty, young and innocent-looking. Get friendly, join the party, play along ... they won't see you as a spy like they would with other faculty members. If you play it well, they might even see you as corruptible. Their guard will be down and they will likely do their worst. So, are we agreed?"
"Well, I guess so."
"Good, be there at 9 pm. Things should be getting underway by then."