Rigid foci on accountability, accreditation, and customer service pose significant challenges for literacy educators today. The most consequential identified as the snuffing out of scholastic innovation and erosion of academic freedom. This article recounts a recent experience that occurred while the author prepared a lesson for an undergraduate content area literacy class, which made her somewhat nostalgic for times past. Yet it also jarred her into reaffirming her commitment to a liberatory pedagogy that is both resistant and bold. This emancipatory pedagogy challenges present day efforts to extinguish the flames of pedagogical innovation and refuses to cave to pressures for alignment of teaching strategy with a standardized, milquetoast curriculum. The experience solidified the author's resolve to contest the contemporary higher education, administrative mandate to provide students with "great" customer service at the expense of high-quality educational experiences. (Contains 6 resources.)