The Brain Pyramid

One of 20 plaques from the "Pax Americana" series created for the D.B. Weldon Library at Western University. 
 
"In 2037, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., fresh off his triumph against healthcare, turned his focus toward correcting education. Washington held a dark view of the calcification of the school system, concerned that the minds of the future were being poorly shaped by outdated ways of thinking. Universities, particularly those located above the 49th parallel, were seen as outposts of intellectual subversion.
 
Kennedy’s first action was to implement what became known as the Great Tenure Migration. All professors who had achieved protected employment under the former system were given the choice of relocation abroad or termination. A cohort of young educators was sent north to replace them, implementing a unified curriculum untethered by the constraints of tenure.
 
Kennedy, who had found great success with his revisions to the Food Pyramid in 2026, created a similar Brain Pyramid. Designed to rebalance academia, the Brain Pyramid ranks fields of study according to their national utility. Revenue-generating fields are located at the base, while non-essential endeavors such as Arts & Humanities are found in the narrow upper tiers. Funding, staffing, and curricular authority were realigned based on where departments were placed within the pyramid, with annual audits used to ensure institutional compliance."