Mud

That's what my brains seem to be made of. I've actually had a relatively good, productive day today, but I just have a sneaking suspicion that one of those "Oh shit!" moments is sure to happen soon. I spent a lot of today working with Bruce on the summer schedules, which is a monster: everyone wants classes in the same sessions and at the same times, and there just aren't that many classes. Many of the ones we're assigning may not get sufficient enrollment to run. Bruce and I are going to put in another hour or so tomorrow, missing the general faculty meeting called by the president: I've never been to one and had intended to go, just to keep an eye on this guy to see what he's up to, but Bruce said it was nothing new--and we truly do have to get those schedules done. So, keeping the real priorities in order--that our students need qualified faculty teaching their classes and our qualified faculty need to be given schedules that work--decision made.

Today's 102 was pretty fun, actually. They've relaxed a lot with me, mostly because of a few specific students who were confident enough to test my reactions and find out for everyone that I'm capable of laughing and joking around with them--but also partly because it's the end of semester and they're so stressed and tired they're getting daffy. Me too, quite honestly. But it was fun, and we had a great conversation about the intro and Le Guin's essay about the book--and they aired some of their questions and worries about their papers. Monday they'll help each other with their papers, making hand corrections before they turn them in. Wednesday we'll do the semester wrap-up and they'll turn in their end-of-semester self-evaluations. Then the final Monday they'll come to my office (I hope) to pick up their final grade sheets. And that's it. I'll do essentially the same with the Monday/Thursday class (just substitute "Thursday" for "Wednesday" in what I wrote above). And I did take a minute today to figure out what to do with the T/Th 102: there are only 8 students in that class, so if I organize things properly, I can get their final papers read and their grade sheets done before I see them that final Thursday, all except their self-evaluations, which I can do on the fly at that last moment. That will take care of that. I'm still thinking how to handle the Native American Lit students: I talked to them about it, but I didn't write down what I said and now I've forgotten. I think I told them that we'd do the end-of-semester review on Tuesday, when their final papers are due, and that I'd have grade sheets for them on Thursday. I'll ask them tomorrow.

I guess I feel compelled to write all that here in the blog, not because I think it will be of interest to you, my faithful readers, but because writing it down I'm more likely to remember what I've decided.

Speaking of such decisions: I don't think I mentioned this yesterday, but I did write up a version of the plagiarism letter for the student who plagiarized his proposal. I gave it to him to read before class. Then, after I worked with a few students on proposals, I talked to him, just to be sure he understood. He did. He worked with his group on trying to come up with a thesis and ideas for his paper--and he knows he has to write the paper without help from me. The one thing I changed my mind about was I didn't try to scare him: my approach was very friendly and matter-of-fact, along the lines of, "OK, this is what you decided to do, so this is what happens now." We'll see what happens next. In today's 102, a student showed up who had turned in his proposal on time initially but who didn't bother to find out if it had passed (it hadn't) and who returned to class today as if he could continue on. I pulled him out and said, "Well, you needed to have the proposal approved by Monday, and it wasn't, so you've failed the class." Shrug.
I continued, "So, there's no need for you to hang around: you might as well go work on one of your other classes." "Can I withdraw?" "No, sorry, it's too late." Shrug, "OK," he said. And schlumpf, schlumpf, schlumpf, off he went. Sei gesund.

I've just chipped through the last drangling bits of homework for two of the four classes: I'll finish the rest tomorrow or (for the M/W 102) on Monday. I did my book order for fall (and made a note to remind myself to send off the stuff to the print center for photocopying). I sent out some e-mails, working to nail down some committee stuff. And I need to proofread my piece for the Portuguese publication coinciding with the conference presentation and respond to my friend with any corrections. Then I'm done for the day.

Mud pie anyone?