That Went Fast

The past week just blew by.

I got and graded a big stack of papers, and some small stacks (journals, rewrites).

I've been to endless meetings (well, it feels like they're endless, even if they're good meetings).  And student conferences; I've met with every student in my writing class at least once since 8am on Thursday.

I spent most of the weekend in grading jail.  Except I went to a concert that my violin teacher was playing in.  Way good!

Today, I don't teach, so I slept in, and am about to practice, and then start to grade a big stack of papers.  Then, around noon, I'll go to campus for a meeting and then conferences with students.

The stack of papers I turned back in my Shakespeare class have led to some worried students wanting conferences.  And my writing students are working on a paper which they'll do peer revision work on tomorrow in class.  This is a hard assignment, and I think most of them are on track (since I've talked to them all in conference, I have a pretty good idea where they were).  But several want more feedback before peer revision.

Violin is especially fun right now.  I'm about to work on "The Two Grenadiers," a song by Schumann in D-minor and D-major.  So I'm working on the D-minor scale, and since you can shift a string and do basically the same thing in a different key, the G-minor scale.  I find scales weirdly satisfying, I think because I can practice them and achieve a basic level of doing them fairly quickly.  (That doesn't happen with most pieces I'm learning.)

I seem to have an especially heavy committee load right now, and can I say, when you work with someone on a committee, you get a different sense of them.  I'm on one committee with an administrator, and while I respected her before, my respect has redoubled.  She's fantastic at facilitating discussion and progress. 

And I'm on a committee with a young faculty colleague, and I'm astounded by how set in stone she thinks things must be.  For example, we came up with issue X, and she said that she's heard that at some schools, issues X is always handled in Y way.  And more experienced committee members said, yes, that's true at some schools, but we don't, because handling issue X in Y way may mislead people and thus be hurtful.  And she insisted that at some schools, issue X is handled in Y way, and she wanted to make sure we knew that.  And once again, other folks said, yes, we know, but we don't because doing that is problematic.  She came back to the Y practice two or three more times, as if she couldn't quite believe that we'd rejected Y practice for reasons we believe are good.

And it was like that for several issues.  Color me unimpressed.

Yesterday, I went to a recital by a university string student my teacher teaches.   (If you want to learn an instrument, one helpful thing is to pay attention to other people who play.  At the least, you get a bit more familiar with some repertoire.)  The student did a really good job.  Really good. 

And once again, I was so impressed by how poised our music students are, at least the ones who give recitals.  (I'm sure there are some music students who aren't so good, etc.)  But the ones at this recital, the pianist, a chamber group, they're so good at looking confident and comfortable on stage.  It's not that they don't make mistakes, but they're poised. 

And watching the chamber group, it's so cool to see how closely they attend to each other, looking, listening.  Way cool!

Minor Irritations

I serve on an interdisciplinary program committee; in fact, for the past year or so, I've been chair.  I offered to become chair when I did because the person who's primary service responsibility in this program and committee, the person who had been chair, irritated the heck out of me when they were chair because they wouldn't prepare an agenda (until I told them they needed to, and then the night before) and thus would introduce something half-assedly into a meeting and expect us to all be ready to go along with their idea without having a chance to think about it or whatever.  In other words, we'd have X business to do, and an agenda would come out the night before saying we had X business to do, and then in the meeting, they'd want to start with Y.  (Let's call this person the Slacker.)

It's not that I'm a super stickler for agendas or something, it's that when I get an agenda for a meeting, I look at the materials ahead of time, try to find answers to questions I have, make notes, and am prepared to discuss the issue.  So if there's an emergency or something really urgent, by all means, let's introduce it and see what we can do.  But if it's just bad planning, then let's talk about what we've prepared to talk about.

The corollary, of course, is that the Slacker never bothers to prepare for meetings.


There's the background.

This semester, the Slacker has backed away (probably legitimately) from other service, and so is only serving this interdisciplinary program on a couple of committees.

I, on the other hand, am chairing a search for my department, serving on several other committees, and the usual.  (I'm not doing anything extraordinary, but keeping busy.  I thus have a legitimate reason to say I'm not going to chair the interdisciplinary program committee this year.  Everyone would nod in agreement about it being someone else's turn.  And there's one person who might step in (but who's at their limit already in service in a BIG way), and would do a stellar job just because this person always does a stellar job.

But, my guess is that the committee would turn to the Slacker, who's service is all in the interdisciplinary program.  I don't know if they'd refuse or not.

I have to decide, because I can do 2-3 times the work as chair, or I can be possibly irritated for the rest of the year by this Slacker's learned incompetence.  (I think the Slacker could be totally competent; they are super competent about their own stuff.  But in service, not.  All big talk, no actual work.)


I have to decide, because if I offer, the program leader would be much happier, and everyone else on the committee would be happier, and I may actually be less stressed than if the Slacker chairs.


Side story: this committee does some work that goes to a college committee for their decision; some of that work is assigned by the college.  Paperwork A takes about an hour of a committee member's time, and then the committee looks at it, and takes maybe 10-15 minutes max, approves, and passes it forward.  We split up this work so that everyone on the committee does one or two iterations of Paperwork A.  (There's also Paperwork B, C, and D, which are way more onerous.)

Okay, last year, the slacker was assigned Paperwork A for X issue.  Everyone else on the committee did their Paperwork A issue.  Near the end of last academic year, we had a Paperwork B issue for X, and someone else on the committee did that, and it got sent forward to the college committee.

This week, the Deanling who runs the college committee emailed me to thank me for the Paperwork B we'd done for several issues, and then said that she'd done Paperwork A for X issue as well, because it had to be done before Paperwork B could go through, and she'd used the information for Paperwork B to fill out the Paperwork A form.

So the slacker put off Paperwork A for the year, and now never has to do it.  How's that for a reward!

(The Paperwork A stuff is 90% bullputty, and 10% meaningful, and normally, I'd be all over someone avoiding the bullputty part.  But I'm already irritated at the Slacker, so I'm more irritated now.)

(This is my last year on this committee, which I think is good.)

Gamifying Meetings and Grumpy

I'll start with the grumpy.  I simply haven't been sleeping well for the past week or so.  It happens sometimes, bad insomnia, and then I tend to get over it and start sleeping pretty well.  (I had terrible insomnia for years, and didn't quite even realize it; I'd just be awake from the time I went to bed, at say, 10, until 2 or 3 am, and then have to get up for school or work or whatever, and would drag through the day, especially as a teen.

Yesterday, I was at a long meeting, a four hour "retreat" for my college, and a new deanling did a presentation on GE sorts of stuff.  We're starting a new GE program this year, so we all need to know the rules and how to advise students, figure out schedules, and make our courses "fit."  Okay, I get that.

I have high hopes for this deanling; I've served on committees with them and they're smart, thoughtful, fair-minded, feminist.  So I was disappointed, because they set up this "game" that was basically, new GE trivia on a computerized platform.

At each table we had to log on with a device, and then there were questions, and we were supposed to answer these questions with points for being right, and points for being fast. 

So we responded to the incentives: the person who knew the answer said it, the person clicking clicked, and the people who didn't know the answers hung out.  At my table, I knew the answers because I've served on curriculum committees of late. 

But if the purpose was to get the people less familiar with the new GE to learn about it, then it didn't work, because they weren't involved at all.

But at least it wasn't horribly irritating.

We also had a meet and greet thing with some local officials.  We have about 20% representation of people of color in our local high schools, and within local governments, people of color are increasingly well represented.  There's a really strong local organization, and they're very involved in the community.

You wouldn't have known that from the local officials who came to our meeting, though.  That was irritating.  (I bent the dean's ear a bit about that, and he was receptive, but didn't have a solution; the meet and greet arrangements happened well over his head, I think.)

According to our headmaster, this is the year we really focus on increasing our service to people of color in our community.  (There's a better way to put this, but you get the idea: we're after attracting and retaining students of color to better reflect our community and region, and also faculty/staff of color to contribute in all the positive ways diversity does.) 

You wouldn't have known that from the college meeting, either. 

I have another four hour "retreat" today.  At least this one's led by a feminist person of color, so I'm pretty sure we'll address both feminism and social justice issues.

Free Advice

If you're interviewing for an English department type job, don't call Shakespeare "the Bard" even once, and certainly not repeatedly.

You sound like an fool.  And not a good kind of fool.

Wagging the Dog

Over in the underwater basketweaving department, they're working on assessment projects like mad because the new campus assessment person has said jump in a very loud voice, and the headmaster's assistant has cracked the whip.

They have this program, a certificate in underwater basketweaving, which is a bit less than a minor, but gives students practical skills for managing and working with basketweaving projects later.  The certificate has six classes, Basketweaving basics (UBW 10), Underwater safety (UBW 20),  Introductory reed work (UBW 101), Basketweaving theory (UBW 103), and Integrative basketweaving (UBW 190, a sort of capstone experience), with one elective (at the 100 level or above) to be chosen from a group of basketweaving classes.

They were told that they had to write out specific goals and outcomes for the certificate program, and that for every goal, there had to be at least one outcome, and for every outcome, at least one way to demonstrate that every student did it.  The pressure from the campus assessment person is that we all have to do assessment stuff "in a meaningful way," and so he hints that we should all limit the numbers of outcomes.

The goal for this certificate is that students should be able to weave basic underwater baskets, and that they should do so safely, and they should understand how basketweaving works.  That gets broken down into a couple of outcomes, which I'll number:

1)  Weave underwater baskets.

2)  Use safe and appropriate techniques.

3)  Understand basic basketweaving issues.  (Which in assessment outcome talk is going to come out as something like "demonstrate an understanding of basic basketweaving")

Then they were told to make a grid, showing where each of the outcomes was taught, and where each would be assessed.  Let's use "T" for courses where things will be taught, and "Ass" for where they'll be assessed

Basketweaving basics (UBW 10):  1T; 3T

Underwater safety (UBW 20):  2T

Introductory reed work (UBW 101): 1T; 3T

Basketweaving theory (UBW 103): 3T

Integrative basketweaving (UBW 190, a sort of capstone experience):  1A, 2A, 3A


Since they don't know which of the electives students will take (Advanced Underwater Safety, Intermediate Basketweaving, whatever), they don't put the electives on the list.

Then they're asked to fill out another form, telling how UBW 190 is going to assess each of the outcomes.  So they've chosen as their assessment the final project, the production of an underwater basket without drowning or losing body parts.  Oh, and they also have to use something written to demonstrate understanding, but some people don't give an exam, and some people require an extensive reflection piece about the woven underwater basket, while others do give an exam, but do it as an oral.  It's a mess, but they're working on it.


And now, they're a bit worried, because budget cuts are coming down the pike along with an emphasis on getting students through programs as fast as possible, and they're going to be driven by assessment.

UBW 103, the theory class, doesn't seem to teach any of the outcomes that aren't also taught in the other classes, so are the beancounters going to come back and say, "Well, it doesn't contribute to the outcomes you've assigned, so why is it required?  If it were important, you would have put it on your grid."

"And the elective?" the beancounters will ask, "Do students even learn anything in the elective?  It's not on your grid, so they must not learn anything."


Coming soon to a campus near you, because it's for the students!

I Hate Meetings: Reading Aloud Edition

I checked the meeting agenda to prepare for my meeting this afternoon. We're being revisited by one of those folks who really likes to hear his own voice. He likes his voice so much that he reads aloud the stuff he brings forward. And he reads aloud badly. (But, lest we forget, he hangs out on the porches of the powerful around here, drinking and bonding with the other men who have power.)

Imagine, if you will, a dramatic reading of a budget report. And not with Patrick Stewart or someone like that doing the reading.

I've heard at least three different versions of this material read aloud in various meetings so far.

Yes, I know he's reading it aloud so that people will pay what he feels is sufficient attention to the immense amount of labor he puts in. Seriously, I recognize that the stuff is important but also boring enough that we don't actually want to spend time reading it. And, he doesn't send it out ahead so that we can prepare it by reading it ourselves so we can just ask questions or whatever.

I'm at the point of thinking:

Crappy Meeting vs. Playing on the Freeway in Hopes of Being Killed, and playing on the freeway is looking not that bad.

Or maybe I should think:

Crappy Meeting vs. Unemployment because I've been fired for being mean to one of the good old boys.

One hour of really crappy meeting looks a little less bad, doesn't it?

I wonder if I can find a way to become incredibly, dangerously, contagiously ill for just about an hour this afternoon? Is it any wonder I turn to sugar?