Snooki will make $32,000 tonight for appearing at two Q&A events at Rutgers. Nobel Prize winner and author of such canonical novels as Beloved and Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison will make $2,000 less than that for delivering this year’s commencement address at the university. Oh, New Jersey. Well, Snooki is an author too now, I suppose.
Before we bemoan Rutgers’ decision-making here, keep in mind that Snooki was booked by a student programming organization while Morrison was hired by university officials. Plus, Snooki taught the kids how to fist pump and even styled one girl’s hair into a pouf. That’s…bang for your buck.
Also, Snooki gets paid $30,000 an episode for Jersey Shore, so she really wouldn’t expect anything less.
Advice Snooki will give Rutgers students: “Study hard, party harder.”
Advice Toni Morrison would be likely to give Rutgers students: “As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.”
“Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
So same difference, right, Rutgers!