Signs that you might not be standing on a giant pool of lava

The next time the English Department decides that they're going to play departmental politics with the capstone thesis of one of their hardest-working seniors, they should make sure that over the last 12 months the senior hasn't been doing more to make life easier for key tenured faculty than the English Department has.

They should also make sure that the senior isn't doing something useful with their capstone project, like, say, publishing it.