Back in the office...

Cathy and I didn't make a hell of a lot of headway today; there are a lot of FT schedules that are still pretty shaky, even though we shored up a few. The frustration is that we're under heavy pressure to cancel classes--but we absolutely know that students will be registering during the week after contracts are signed and before most classes begin, so we really have to keep sections open for that eventuality. The other frustration Cathy is dealing with (not my headache, thank god) is that we don't have rooms for our classes. The administration in their infinite wisdom shuttered one of the buildings in which a lot of our classes used to be held--and moved classes and a whole department out of another building (which is now being leased to another entity)--but they didn't bother to make sure they actually, truly would have space for every class. "Oh, there's plenty of room," they said. Hah. Not only do we have classes scheduled in different buildings on different meeting days (Mondays here, Wednesdays on the other side of campus), a lot of our classes have no room at all in which to meet. We're down to bathrooms and broom closets--unless they recognize that the High Muckdy-Mucks will have to give up some of their precious space to accommodate students and classes and give us rooms in the administrative buildings.

So, yes: once again, we are a living example of a cluster-fuck.

I also realized that one of the reasons we're struggling with enrollment isn't actually that enrollment is down: it's that caps on courses have been raised, slowly, stealthily, over the past years, so comp courses that used to be capped at 24 are now capped at 27; classes that were 26 are 28; classes that were 28 are 31. That is unless the class is scheduled in a room that the Fire Marshal has said can only hold a smaller number--or, in the case of at least one of the specialty programs, because the program coordinator has decided that his classes will be capped at 16. (I don't know how he's getting away with that, but so far, he is.) I'm glad that the Creative Writing program is able to keep their courses a manageable size; and our remedial and accelerated courses have reasonable caps, which so far Cathy has been able to battle to keep where they are. But I added it up: if all the 101s that are now full were reduced to 24 students in each section, there would be 158 students needing classes. I'm pretty sure that's more than enough students to make sure every section we have open would fill, and it might even be enough that we'd need to open a few more sections.

But, under the current circumstances, Cathy and I simply tossed all the work we did in May on adjunct schedules. There are virtually zero courses to distribute, and a zillion people looking for work. It's going to be dreadful--especially if we do have to give some of the courses that are currently unassigned to FT faculty. I put together a little spread sheet of classes that are below the threshold (the magic number is 12, I understand--though that seems to change from semester to semester); we need to make sure we have something to give any FT faculty who lose a course--and we need to make sure we don't assign courses that won't run to senior adjuncts. The fun just doesn't quit.

But Cathy and I called a halt to the work pretty early. I've been upstairs at my own desk since about 3:30 this afternoon (it's after 5 now), and I've been trying to make sure I have everything that is currently ready uploaded to the SF Blackboard page and printed out, ready to copy. I need to do the same with 101. (Speaking of enrollment, by the way, one of my sections of 101 has exploded, enrollment-wise. The other section is still holding at 10; there are 11 in the SF class.) I think my life will be made much easier if I can spend some time tomorrow working on the color-coded (and much reduced) syllabi I use for my own planning, so I know what handouts I need when. Then I can carefully go through folders and make sure I have the most up-to-date versions ready to roll.

And at some point, I'll start making the photocopies. There's no way in hell I can get the copies done by Printing and Publications at this late date--at least not anything I need for the first four weeks or so. But I feel very disorganized and bewildered by all the paper and folders and files and shit everywhere, so I hope to have a few days in which I can simply slowly, carefully, methodically check things over and check them off.

That, however, is a worry for another day. Today, I'm going to wrap things up here and head off to physical therapy. If I work at home tomorrow (and I hope I will, after my little dermatological procedure), I'll post. If not, I'll post on Wednesday. The routine is beginning to reassert itself, which is a curate's egg: it's bad, but I assure you, parts of it are excellent.