"Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts, and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: tenure."

-- What the Wizard of Oz should have said to the Scarecrow

What's happened to our colleges and universities?

Consider the case of the screaming, foul-mouthed, lose-the-pants debate coach from Fort Hays State University in Kansas.

On a video made famous on Internet site YouTube, Professor Bill Shanahan and another "professor" are seen yelling at each other profanely in front of an audience at a debate event at Emory University last March -- before Shanahan suddenly turns and moons the room.

Nice.

Even better: A story in The Kansas City Star reports that "Shanahan had been arrested twice for disorderly conduct and battery between May 2006 and June 2007. The 2006 arrest involved an argument at an eye doctor's office, and the 2007 arrest, also for battery and resisting arrest, involved an altercation at a children's T-ball game."

Is there really a lot to "debate" at a child's T-ball game? You think maybe we need to work on our people skills?

Larry Gould, the chief academic officer at Fort Hays State, says the behavior is inappropriate -- but also defends both Shanahan and his style and actually says what he saw on the video is "not out of character" for Shanahan.

"We understand there is this confrontational, rapid-delivery debate style where people are screaming at one another," Gould is quoted. "Bill is a maverick, a nonconformist and a very provocative professor. He is antiestablishment; for example, he never wears shoes. But he gets excellent marks in the classroom. He does a great job making people think."

Apparently it doesn't matter how.

Fort Hays isn't the only institution of higher learning giving Shanahan a pass: The Star reported he was unavailable to comment for the story because he was on his way back from a summer teaching engagement at Dartmouth.

Yeah, you just can't expose enough young, impressionable minds to that kind of behavior.