After years in graduate school cranking out his doctorate, Stan Sucker bucks the tight market for a job in academia. When he finally lands a one-year post in the deep South, he hits the ground running, spending all his time preparing his lectures. He is distracted when he is seduced by an older married woman and then falls for a cute young coed in one of his classes. He labors under the illusion that higher education is all about seeking truth and enlightening others. Appearing at an anti-war rally he is branded as the campus red. Shunned by his colleagues, who are safely into football and golf, he begins to realize too late the enormous gap between his image of the scholar-professor and the hum drum reality. His proclivity toward changing the world for the better is badly misguided in the modern era. University departments seek only business jocks who can advance the profits of globalizing corporations and help keep the academic ship afloat.