Not-So-Academic Affairs is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Characters, incidents, elements, and locales have been fictionalized and are not intended to reflect on actual persons, places, or entities. All rights reserved.

Saeed Stone

Saeed, of Arab (Lebanese) and American (British) descent, arrives in Lundston, Ohio after being forced to resign from prestigious Charbel University on charges of blasphemy. Though determined to avoid trouble, he runs amuck with students, colleagues, and the founding family of the city, the Lundys. He becomes enamored with Alyssa Waite, and has uncanny encounters with trees and birds. When provocateur Rex Tumbler challenges him in classes, he’s drawn into battle against alt-right encroachment and private Campus Security surveillance operations.

Alyssa Waite

Alyssa, on leave from City of Refuge in Pittsburgh, returns to her hometown to complete graduate studies after enduring a tumultuous divorce. She meets Saeed in the Emergency Room of the local hospital after each suffered accidents; their roller-coaster journey together begins. She assists him in classes, pulls him out of muddles, links him with the Lundy clan, then faces a hard choice when students ask her to help plan a massive protest against the alt-right eugenicist Dick Walker’s impending speech on campus.

Rex Tiller

Rex lost his lower legs in a freak industrial accident and returns to college in a wheelchair scarred physically and psychologically. He recruits young male students for his militia, organizes eugenicist Dick Walker’s speech on campus, aligns with members of Campus Security, and launches the alt-right movement in the region. He is Alyssa’s childhood friend, now a cannonball who drives the central conflicts of the story.

Camella Moreau

Latina professor in her forties, Camella is Alyssa’s mentor and confidante, former army captain, now graduate director, respected by all and feared by some. She suffers from PTSD, challenges tactics of Commander Clune of Campus Security and becomes one of his primary surveillance targets. She’s married to Marcus DeBose.

Stefan Balm

Of Serbian Jewish heritage, Stefan is a local boy made good after a calamitous youth. He’s in his late forties, former biker, carpenter, trade unionist, guitarist in a hard rock band who leads faculty resistance against Security surveillance. Married to Nicole, the department secretary, he’s a liaison between the university and the local community, and draws the line with his new colleague, Saeed.

Marcus DeBose

Marcus, married to Camella, is a Black man from the Hill District in Pittsburgh, a wine maker and mediator of conflicts working behind the scenes. Stefan is his close friend, along with Helene Jarvis. He hosts a monthly “power pong” night in the loft of the barn behind his house that becomes one of the last safe havens to speak without being heard or seen by the Campus Security apparatus.

Ginny & Becca

Ginny is a traditional student with Cerebral Palsy who uses an electric wheelchair; she struggles to control her movements physically but has a powerful voice, biting sense of humor, and leads the protests against Walker. She confronts her nemesis Rex Tumbler in classes. With Becca, Caleb, and other students, she recruits Alyssa to help organize the largest demonstration in the city since the steelworkers strikes of previous era.

Bea Holden

In her fifties, Bea is a professor who grew up in the school of hard knocks, a political player who works both ends against the middle. As faculty union liaison, Robert's Rules of Order and the faculty contract are her bibles. She solicits students to report on department colleagues she fears, doesn’t like, or suspects of malfeasance, and colludes with Rex, seemingly oblivious to his alt-right ideology and malicious intentions, to bait fellow professor JB Clough and report on Saeed’s activities.

Helene Jarvis

Helene is a woman in her late thirties, associate professor with Ivy League creds and a brazen sense of humor, deeply embedded in the women’s and LGBTQ+ movements. Helene confronts misogynist attitudes and micro-aggressions wherever she finds them, and she finds them everywhere. Stefan Balm and Marcus DeBose are her close colleagues; together they battle surveillance and work to rescue JB Clough from self-destruction.

JB Clough

JB is a bisexual man in his mid 50s, assistant professor going up for tenure, who hearkens from Lousiana and is unable to hold a position for more than a few years due to complaints by students and colleagues. Though not a good looking man, JB revels in his sensuality, lives on the edge, tests limits. He’s also a gourmet chef with a devilish sense of humor and resonant southern voice. JB becomes the object of Bea’s ire and a victim of Rex’s con game.

Carl “Pa” Lundy & Sons

The ruling patriarch of the family that founded the city of Lundston whose sons (Bobby and Chuck) cross swords with Saeed after Bobby accidentally shoots out the window of his jeep. Carl is a major benefactor of the university—his family granting land, resources, and constructing many of the buildings. He squares off with Saeed in a negotiation mediated by Stefan with stakes beyond what Saeed anticipated.

Caleb & Billy

Caleb is a Black traditional student in Saeed’s class who aligns with Ginny and Becca in efforts to thwart Dick Walker’s arrival on campus. Billy, a non-traditional student from Lundston, is cousin to Bobby and Chuck and knows both Rex and Alyssa. He enrolls in Saeed’s class to try to mollify him, then is swept up in planning the big protest against Walker.

Frank Wall

In his early fifties, Frank is the department chair who is bombarded with complaints and demands from every angle. He is conservative socially and politically—wary of unions (he’s is a member), women (he’s married to one), Blacks & minorities (colleagues are both), and international students (he invites but avoids them). He dislikes Helene, hired against his will; covers for JB, a political ally; fears Camella, who he depends on; and is flabbergasted by Saeed.

Koi Li

Visiting Fulbright scholar from China, Koi is quiet, brilliant, a keen observer of the bluster and conflicts of her new department colleagues. She audits Saeed’s freedom of speech class and becomes fascinated with Americans’ freewheeling use of obscenities, which she incorporates into her research. She takes detailed notes on everything and everybody, jokes about being a spy for the Chinese Cultural Ministry, and is amused by Americans’ concerns about surveillance.

Phyllis Powers

Phyllis is Dean of the School of Liberal Arts, in her mid-fifties, meticulous, manages by the book, tightfisted, has no patience for waste, under pressure to ensure efficiency of all programs. She’s a cross-dresser, appearing variously in men’s and women’s attire, which baffles Frank who becomes obsessed as she imposes policies and investigates his attempts to cover for JB.

Nicole Balm

Department secretary in her forties, Nicole is an artist whose paintings are displayed in regional galleries; she’s married to Stefan, connected to the local community, knows everybody including housekeeping and maintenance engineers who keep the university afloat and her informed of Security’s surveillance actions. Without Nicole, the department would disintegrate.

Mitch Marcucci

In his sixties, Mitch, a local boy who became a speech pathologist, then a university professor, is the former department chair, an authoritarian type whose nemesis is Frank Wall. He was best friends with Alyssa’s father, now deceased, and has known her since she was a child. Mitch is marked by a godfather complex that’s exacerbated by his increasing senility. He tries to take Saeed under his wing, but keeps forgetting his name.

Julienne Chargé

President of Lundston University, Julienne is married to Frederick König, renowned scholar of political philosophy. She is instrumental in establishing the rules by which surveillance takes place at the university, walking the line between legality and illegality, She allows Dick Walker to speak, fearful of facing lawsuits otherwise, and In the end she is pressed into making the most agonizing decision of all.

Heir Professor Frederick König the 3rd

Endowed professor of political philosophy, König retired from the State Department’s diplomatic corps after twenty years and followed his wife to Lundston University. His influence in all realms of the university is extraordinary. When Saeed attempts to get a course approved, König challenges him to a Socratic dialogue on truth, then plays a crucial role in determining Saeed’s fate.

Commander Clune

Head of Campus Security, Clune is pensive about whether his company’s private contract will be renewed by the President, and becomes obsessed with Camella Moreau who, like him, served a tour of duty in Afghanistan. When Saeed appears in his sites, the stage is set for a showdown.

Dick Walker

Dick Walker is a nationally recognized scholar of eugenics, head of the largest alt-right movement in the country that has suffered setbacks since Charlottesville, now reconstituting. Rex, in his capacity as chair of the student ‘Environmental Club”, arranges for him to speak on campus.

Officer Neckers

Neckers, Rex’s friend, is a Security officer who is humiliated by Camella when he attempts to break up a small student protest on campus, resulting in Clune putting him on administrative leave.

Sheriff Tony Russo

An old friend of Carl Lundy who, along with Officer Mary and Mitch Marcucci, reflect the influence of the working class Italian population of Lundston.

Officer Mary Brentano

A childhood friend of both Rex and Alyssa, Mary comes to Saeed’s rescue early in the story, then appears at pivotal moments.

Nurse Braun

The male nurse in the hospital who also appears at pivotal moments.

Housekeeper Fran & Groundskeeper Jack

Fran and her husband Jack are friends of Nicole and Stefan and provide intelligence on surveillance operations on campus. Fran also plays a pivotal role in the end.

Additional characters include: State Trooper Casey Cline, Edna Crowly, Ed’s former girlfriend Hannah, Koi’s cousin Deng, Detective Reston, Deputy Hilligoss.