Good start

I didn't mention in yesterday's blog, but I was feeling some apprehension about the general faculty meeting scheduled for today, regarding the vote of no confidence in President Astrab. Although the Academic Senate already took such a vote (at an emergency meeting in June), it was resolved that the issue needed to be taken to the faculty as a whole in order for any such vote to have real heft. I knew heading into today's meeting that not all the faculty share my opinion of him as a waste of protoplasm, ahem, I mean, as an obstructionist and hostile head administrator, so I was prepared for more than a little contention. There really was none. A few people raised some kind of objection--one law professor clearly misunderstood the content of the resolution we were voting on and was concerned on legalistic/linguistic grounds; one person from admissions was concerned about how we'd be perceived by the wider community (I won't get into my reactions to that one, unless someone asks)--but for the most part, everyone who commented simply gave reasons why they thought the vote was warranted. The discussion ended early--amazing, since academics generally feel something hasn't been said properly until they've said it their own way--and the vote was taken. We've not seen the actual numbers, but 89% of those voting approved the "no confidence" decision. A good majority of us were there to vote, too, so although I'd have liked to see something closer to unanimity, it's a pretty clear message that we're well and truly angry. Some of my colleagues were beautifully succinct and appropriately sneering when they talked about Astrab. But now, of course, we don't know what happens next. The metaphoric ball is with the Board of Trustees, and we'll see what, if anything, they choose to do in response. Interesting times.

Coming out of the meeting was a nice feeling: "That went remarkably well." Then I got to my office to find a student waiting to talk to me about her reading journal. She was intensely confused about what needed to be done--and her level of confusion leaves me concerned about her ability to get her brains wrapped around the work. She had an adolescent daughter in tow, and her daughter was both eager to respond to my questions and apparently better equipped than her mother to think as a student. This is not terribly surprising. The daughter is a student, so she's tuned in to the process, whereas clearly Mom hasn't been a student in a long while, and she is freaking out about doing well. I believe at least part of her confusion was, in fact, the freak-out factor getting in the way of her understanding work that really isn't so complicated. In any event, I told her I'd accept her journal late, once we went over them in class and she got a better sense of what needs to be done. She ended up in a group with some smart cookies, so their calm acceptance and understanding of the work probably helped her more than anything I could say.

After she left my office, another student arrived, also with questions about assignments. His questions were simpler, his level of confusion less profound: I think he was just checking in to be sure he's on track.

But the main thing is, it's essentially the third day of classes, and I've already had three students make contact with me to get help--one of them (Mom), twice. That's unheard of in my experience, and speaks incredibly well for all of them.

Today's class was terrific, too. There were a couple of new bodies (two who registered late, slipping into openings left when others disappeared without ever being seen, and one who simply had been absent), but they seemed to fit in right away. We did the little name game that I've used as an ice-breaker for ages, and they played well together. When I put them in groups, they were really rolling: good observations, good thinking across the board. I was genuinely delighted, and told them so. (Nothing like positive reinforcement early on.) I know classes can shift as the semester progresses: what starts out as a cracker-jack bunch can fizzle, and vice versa. But if this group keeps on as they've begun, this will be a good class. Of course, their papers will also be a make-or-break proposition: students who groove like mad on the reading and class discussion can fall apart entirely when it comes to the challenge of writing papers, especially to the standards I demand. Well, it will be interesting to see how things transpire.

I collected their first reading journals today, and I briefly contemplated marking them before I head home tonight, but I won't. I'll leave them for Monday, when I start holding my evening office hours. Next week will be the first real week: no holiday, and committee meetings will be starting, including weekly sessions with P&B. Between that and my advisement schedule (which also starts next week), I'm going to be eating lunch on the run every day but Thursday. Well, it makes the days go quickly, when I am constantly on the move from the minute I head out of my office for my first class or meeting all the way through until the end of the day. I can tell already that my biggest challenge will be letting go when I get home, so I don't stay up all night jittering (as I did last night). I need to keep fed, hydrated, and, in the evenings, as rested as possible. The roller-coaster is leaving the platform....