This is so utterly ridiculous, but I have spent the last several hours simply trying to figure out what handouts I already have enough of, which I need more of (and how many more), and which need to be changed/fixed/altered in some way before they are usable. The ridiculous part isn't even so much the flurry of lists and folders and hide and seek as it was that I kept turning up more copies of things I thought I didn't have, or didn't have enough of. It's almost like an Easter egg hunt: where might I have hidden more copies of the "Introductory Paragraphs and Thesis Statements" handout? And are the copies in this folder the same as the copies in that folder?
A lot of stuff went into the recycling bin--and I do wish I'd done this a month ago, so I could have sent more of it off to Printing and Publications for them to run off on their big, zippy-quick machines, instead of having to put the wear and tear on the department's more fragile machines (not to mention using up our paper and toner supplies, always a source of wailing and gnashing of teeth when we talk about the budget).
But ah well. Maybe in some future semester I will be more organized and on top of things--or maybe not.
I am reminded, oddly enough, of a tradition at my high school. The last day of classes, seniors would line the balconies around the central atrium and engage in a ceremonial paper toss, flinging all the work they'd saved over the year, or years--and sometimes adding in text books, confetti, and heaven knows what else. (I remember the long-suffering but indulgent looks on the faces of the members of the maintenance staff, standing around the bottom of the atrium, out of the line of fire as it were, with their push brooms, waiting for it all to be over.) I'd rather like to go out on one of the little balconies on this building and fling everything I have in folders over the edge--preferably on a wildly windy day like today has been--and start all over from zero. Except, there is a lovely feeling of triumph when I have a photocopied original out of a book that I can use to make more copies, instead of having to painstakingly copy one page at a time, without cracking the spine, making sure everything is lined up and nothing cut off....
Well. Enough of that.
Class today went well--better than I expected, in fact, which is always gratifying. I had students sit in groups and talk about their own thoughts about what the word "nature" means--and I asked them also to consider three questions as a group: 1. What is "nature"? 2. Are humans part of "nature"? 3. Do you think our ideas about "nature" have changed over time? A couple of the groups ran dry before others did, but it was clear there are some real thinkers in the room, which is lovely to experience. I also tried something I've never done before: when I was about to bring the small group discussion to a halt and talk with the class as a whole, I went to each group and asked them to have some notes so they'd have something to help them remember what they'd been talking about. That's not new, but what was new was that I said, "What happens is, when you're in your groups, we have this" (waving around the room at the animated conversations) "but as soon as I ask people to talk in the class as a whole: crickets." They got it (some laughed), and they were ready to talk. I was especially pleased that the young man who was my student in SF last semester is leading the charge. He was explaining how I work to his group; he was the first to be willing to talk in the whole-class discussion; he is clearly more confident--and therefore more engaged--than he was for most of last semester.
I hope that shows up in his work, too.
It's good for me to spend some time thinking about, reminding myself about, interactions with students--as that's just about the only part of my job that I can stomach these days. The game has changed in ways that piss me off, and I want to take my football and go home. Tomorrow the Strategic Planning committee meets, and we'll find out whether we have been made utterly defunct by the new committee formed by the college president--even though the "only" difference between the two is more hand-picking of the involved faculty and that the senate has no vote in any decision arising from the deliberations of that committee. Paul told me today that the president of the Academic Senate has asked all the Executive Committee members to be at that meeting--to "support the work of the committee" was the phrase Paul used, but I can feel the brawl brewing. (On a side note: I rather love it that when people get riled up almost to the point of fisticuffs in that committee, the secretary for that committee simply records in the minutes, "Discussion ensued.")
Other committees are becoming equally difficult, albeit in different ways. In Seminar Hours, we're being asked to imagine what we'd want seminar hours to look like in our own perfect world. That should be easy--we work with our own students on their writing and reading, if necessary, period--but as soon as we say anything along those lines, the immediate response is that the Administration will never allow it. (If we're going to act for the Administration and nix any ideas we think they won't accept, why are we even having the discussion?) In P&B, the adjunct grievances have "gone away," thank God (though we still have to make a plan for observing the adjunct whose class I went to last semester)--but we're supposed to have gotten "final" applications for promotion today, and only two of the seven or eight people going up for promotion actually had their applications there, ready, professionally presented. The others were either missing entirely or (in one case) half-assed at best. One was there in a very unfinal form, but the colleague in question has been battling severe health problems since early fall, so I'm inclined to give him a break--and two of the missing applications were from colleagues on P&B (including Cathy--can you imagine learning how to manage this behemoth of a department and putting together an application for promotion at the same time? I don't know how the woman will manage--but I bet she pulls it off). But I had to have a little hissy fit about it after seeing what was--or wasn't--in the appropriate file cabinet. Paul reminded me of the P&B mantra: "Your application is your responsibility. P&B will help you if you adhere to the deadlines, but if you miss the deadlines, we will not be able to provide feedback." We still have to come up with letters of support--a requirement of the application--and in the case of the missing folders, I guess we're supposed to simply pull the information to use in the letter of support out of our left ears (or, as I said in an e-mail to P&B, other less savory places).
So, all that stuff, the actual running of the department and the campus, just has me in a permanent snit. I am cranky as hell about it all and want it all to go away.
But the students are great. I confess to being a little testy that I've had to explain in e-mails to several students the assignment information that A) is in the syllabus and 2) I explained in detail in class on Thursday--but at least they're asking for the help, which is a good thing. I'm trying to sound pleasant and helpful, instead of snarling, "If you'd actually read what the assignment schedule says, you'd see that..."
Blah blah blah.
And just like that, it's 8 p.m. (I think of the old public service campaign: "It's X p.m.: do you know where your children are?" Hell, I don't even know where I am, really. Physically, yes, but mentally? I'm all over the place.) But the lovely chime of the (electronic) bell in the Tower building tells me it's time to pack my tense and stagger off home--and I hope I can not think about things until I'm stronger, and I hope I truly am stronger tomorrow....
Monday, January 23, 2017
Friday, January 20, 2017
Quandary...
I'm working on the online version of Nature in Lit, and I've hit a pedagogic snag. In most weeks, there are two separate discussion boards--sometimes three or four. Initially, I was asking students to 1) Do their own initial post of approx. 250 words, 2) comment approx. 100 words on two other students' posts, and 3) do a follow up to their own initial post (either a response to someone else's comment or simply their own further ideas), also about 100 words--and I wanted them to do that for each discussion board. But I think that's too much. I think it's better to keep their own initial posts--no matter how many boards they have to respond to--at 250 words, but either require fewer words in the comments/follow-ups or make the requirement for comments/follow-ups a weekly requirement, rather than for each individual discussion board.
The problem is, I really do want them to have a "discussion" about each reading. I can group things by the same author, but--for example--I want them to read an extract from William Bartram's Travels and an extract from Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology the same week they also read extracts from de Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer and his Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America. I can put the extracts from De Crevecoeur's two pieces together, but I really feel students should respond to Bartram and Wilson separately...
Quandary. Mulling.
Clearly it's time to lie down and read something that has nothing to do with work.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
P.S.
It's interesting to look at my "stats" from time to time. Suddenly, a lot of posts from 2016 are making it onto the "all time" greatest hits list. (And by "greatest hits" I mean those were the posts that people seem to have "hit" by doing some sort of search, not by simply finding and/or following my blog in general.) It's rather amusing to try to figure out what might have triggered the hits. Most of the time, it's utterly mysterious to me. But I like mystery.
Well, that was great. Now what?
The work I had planned for the 102s today went very well. I provided
them with three quotations about literature: its value, how to read it,
why students sometimes struggle with reading it, that sort of thing. I
put them in groups and had them read each quotation, discuss it, take
some notes so they'd have something to refer to in the whole-class
discussion, know who would do the preliminary talking for the group. It
sailed. They not only got the point of the readings, they got thinking
about their own struggle to bridge the gap between the way they were
taught to read in high school and what will be required of them now.
They did a fine job talking in their groups, and they did a fine job
sharing ideas with the class as a whole--both sections.
That seemed to make a good segue into talking about reading notes. I'll have to go over the point of notes and what they should contain many times, I know, but I feel like this was a good set-up for them. I also was able to clarify the assignment for Tuesday--mostly by having them read the actual words in the syllabus. (One of the quotations included the following: "Years of their so-called ‘reading’ is spent ‘making connections’ between themselves and text or the world and the text, but the foundational step of actually reading the words on the page is neglected often to the point that actually reading the assignment isn't necessary." [Karen Swallow Prior, “Why I Support the Common Core Reading Standards,” The Atlantic]. Never mind reading the work of literature in question; it's hard to get them to read what the assignment sheet says. I'm just saying.)
I'm sure some of them will still be confused, but ah well.
The larger problem is, the only things they have due for Tuesday are a self-evaluation and a review of the information in assigned pages in one of their handbooks. We can't do much group discussion of self-evaluations--and they were already doing a lot of that kind of reflection on their own experiences in their groups today--and going over the information in the assigned handbook pages won't take very long at all. So, what do we do with the remaining 57 minutes of the class?
I briefly considered bringing in a very short short story to read aloud in class so they could sort of practice annotating and turning their annotations into notes--but the addition of another story, unconnected to anything else we're reading seemed like it might be confusing. So I briefly considered starting to read the story they have to have read for Thursday's class--but that sounded boring as hell.
So I'm going to bore them a different way. Unlike my usual practice, I'm going to do a little preliminary lecturing, primarily about terminologies--but also about little things like referring to authors by last name, making sure the titles and characters' names are spelled correctly, other little pet peeves along those lines. And I'll review the instructions for reading notes with them, pointing out the examples I provided. It may be yet another class meeting when I let them go early--but that's OK. There will be plenty of times when I keep them until the last second, so it will all come out in the end.
I'm actually going to do more than the usual "chalk and talk" in Nature in Lit on Monday, pretty much for the same reasons--but also because, in reading the selection from Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation that I used this semester, I realized there will be a lot that they won't understand at first, so some preparatory glossing won't go amiss.
Assuming they stay awake.
Returning to today: I did, in fact, make good use of the time between classes--and even some of the time before my first class. I met with my distance ed mentor and got great answers to some of my questions as well as a seal of approval on most of what I've done. I do have a bit more yet to do, in order to have enough to show the VP for distance ed (the next step in the approvals process), but I am definitely making progress. I will need to print out a lot of stuff and go over it carefully to make sure I haven't made any howling blunders--and of course I don't need to have everything in place completely. I'm finally enjoying the process: thinking through the pedagogic rationale for what I'm doing, trying to think like an overwhelmed student who has never taken an online course before.
(Wow: totally got distracted there. Writing that made me think, "Oh, before I forget, I need to..." which led to another, "While I'm at it, I should..." and a couple of "I'd better do this now..." thoughts--and now I don't even remember what set off domino chain. Not that it matters, but this is why I am the absent minded professor: the domino chains are nearly endless.)
So, I'm chipping away at the online course, still finding my way with this semester's courses (the evening class thing creates a really weird rhythm, which will take some time to settle down: it's like Dave Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance," in 7/8 time...). But for now, I think I'm good. I don't feel any other niggling little things threatening to drop through the floorboards, so I'm going to draw a metaphoric line through today on the calendar and call it a wrap for this week.
That seemed to make a good segue into talking about reading notes. I'll have to go over the point of notes and what they should contain many times, I know, but I feel like this was a good set-up for them. I also was able to clarify the assignment for Tuesday--mostly by having them read the actual words in the syllabus. (One of the quotations included the following: "Years of their so-called ‘reading’ is spent ‘making connections’ between themselves and text or the world and the text, but the foundational step of actually reading the words on the page is neglected often to the point that actually reading the assignment isn't necessary." [Karen Swallow Prior, “Why I Support the Common Core Reading Standards,” The Atlantic]. Never mind reading the work of literature in question; it's hard to get them to read what the assignment sheet says. I'm just saying.)
I'm sure some of them will still be confused, but ah well.
The larger problem is, the only things they have due for Tuesday are a self-evaluation and a review of the information in assigned pages in one of their handbooks. We can't do much group discussion of self-evaluations--and they were already doing a lot of that kind of reflection on their own experiences in their groups today--and going over the information in the assigned handbook pages won't take very long at all. So, what do we do with the remaining 57 minutes of the class?
I briefly considered bringing in a very short short story to read aloud in class so they could sort of practice annotating and turning their annotations into notes--but the addition of another story, unconnected to anything else we're reading seemed like it might be confusing. So I briefly considered starting to read the story they have to have read for Thursday's class--but that sounded boring as hell.
So I'm going to bore them a different way. Unlike my usual practice, I'm going to do a little preliminary lecturing, primarily about terminologies--but also about little things like referring to authors by last name, making sure the titles and characters' names are spelled correctly, other little pet peeves along those lines. And I'll review the instructions for reading notes with them, pointing out the examples I provided. It may be yet another class meeting when I let them go early--but that's OK. There will be plenty of times when I keep them until the last second, so it will all come out in the end.
I'm actually going to do more than the usual "chalk and talk" in Nature in Lit on Monday, pretty much for the same reasons--but also because, in reading the selection from Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation that I used this semester, I realized there will be a lot that they won't understand at first, so some preparatory glossing won't go amiss.
Assuming they stay awake.
Returning to today: I did, in fact, make good use of the time between classes--and even some of the time before my first class. I met with my distance ed mentor and got great answers to some of my questions as well as a seal of approval on most of what I've done. I do have a bit more yet to do, in order to have enough to show the VP for distance ed (the next step in the approvals process), but I am definitely making progress. I will need to print out a lot of stuff and go over it carefully to make sure I haven't made any howling blunders--and of course I don't need to have everything in place completely. I'm finally enjoying the process: thinking through the pedagogic rationale for what I'm doing, trying to think like an overwhelmed student who has never taken an online course before.
(Wow: totally got distracted there. Writing that made me think, "Oh, before I forget, I need to..." which led to another, "While I'm at it, I should..." and a couple of "I'd better do this now..." thoughts--and now I don't even remember what set off domino chain. Not that it matters, but this is why I am the absent minded professor: the domino chains are nearly endless.)
So, I'm chipping away at the online course, still finding my way with this semester's courses (the evening class thing creates a really weird rhythm, which will take some time to settle down: it's like Dave Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance," in 7/8 time...). But for now, I think I'm good. I don't feel any other niggling little things threatening to drop through the floorboards, so I'm going to draw a metaphoric line through today on the calendar and call it a wrap for this week.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
A bit like fish and chips...
I feel battered and fried. Silly, really: it wasn't a hard day and included a moment in which I could be amused with myself. I raced out of the house today, concerned that I might be late for class: I opted to get tea from the little on campus snack shop close to the classroom rather than making my usual stop for coffee down the road, sort of flung things around in my office dashed off, got to my classroom--and Kristin was there with a room full of students, clearly in full flood of teaching a first class. What the...?? Oh. I was racing to get there by 10:30, as that was my start time in Advisement all last semester. Class started at 11. I could almost physically feel myself abruptly slow down (a lovely oxymoron, come to think of it).
Meeting the students in Nature in Lit was quite nice. My roster briefly had two students who were in the SF class last semester, but it's back down to one now. Fair enough; I'm sure the other found a more congenial class or professor or time, or whatever he was looking for. The students mostly seemed awake and aware--and one came to me after class to tell me how much he was looking forward to it, and to ask me to look at two of his essays. From what he said, I thought they were observations about Transcendentalist writers, but I took a quick look at them, and they are clearly his attempts to "be" transcendentalist himself. Ah, god: the curse of the creative writer who feels that writing well creatively is the verbal equivalent of a toddler with finger-paints. However, the young man is filled with enthusiasm for words and language, which I do not want to dampen, so I'll need to craft my responses diplomatically and constructively. I do worry, however, about the potential havoc caused to his academic writing by his creative bent. I've said for ages that a huge red flag for me is when a student comes up to me at the end of the first class and says, "I write poetry...." Hang on to your hat: hear comes a veritable hurricane of meaningless magniloquence.
But it's nice to have a student in the class who is jazzed about the material. I couldn't quite get a read on the class yet; I didn't identify anyone who was obviously out of his or her depth, but I'll know a lot more when I get their first writing--and their first reading notes.
I do hope that the block of time between my classes tomorrow turns out to be productive simply in terms of my feeling organized. (It doesn't matter if I actually am organized, you understand, just that I feel that I am.) I've got a lot of little bothersome mental gnats that I need to clear off so I can settle into some kind of work routine, find the rhythm of this very odd semester.
And please God, Cathy and I will stop discovering more mistakes that we made in scheduling.
Oh, but before I sign off for today: one student in the earlier section of 102 shows enormous promise. I remember talking to him in advisement and feeling he was a smart cookie--and so far, all signs are positive. He chatted with me briefly after class yesterday, and today I got an e-mail from him, asking if we would be using MLA 7 or 8. The fact that he even knew to ask is pretty marvelous. Another young man made a point of introducing himself to me after the evening class, and although he's slightly older than the average student and clearly more dedicated to doing well in school, he did keep saying how much he enjoys "typing"--especially if he can talk about something he's interested in. I hope he's equally interested in learning how to talk clearly and intelligently even when he's not necessarily interested in something (a much more important skill)--and that he truly does understand the difference between writing and typing. This ain't chimpanzees at typewriters having a blast whacking at keys and eventually (with the aid of a computer program to winnow out the letter strings that would form the correct words) producing Hamlet.
Early days, early days. There is no telling how the semester will shape up. I think I'm ready (or ready-ish) for the earlier section of 102 tomorrow--assuming the roster doesn't change too drastically over night. And now it's time to toddle over to the grocery store and then toddle home. Tomorrow being that other day we keep hearing so much about.
Meeting the students in Nature in Lit was quite nice. My roster briefly had two students who were in the SF class last semester, but it's back down to one now. Fair enough; I'm sure the other found a more congenial class or professor or time, or whatever he was looking for. The students mostly seemed awake and aware--and one came to me after class to tell me how much he was looking forward to it, and to ask me to look at two of his essays. From what he said, I thought they were observations about Transcendentalist writers, but I took a quick look at them, and they are clearly his attempts to "be" transcendentalist himself. Ah, god: the curse of the creative writer who feels that writing well creatively is the verbal equivalent of a toddler with finger-paints. However, the young man is filled with enthusiasm for words and language, which I do not want to dampen, so I'll need to craft my responses diplomatically and constructively. I do worry, however, about the potential havoc caused to his academic writing by his creative bent. I've said for ages that a huge red flag for me is when a student comes up to me at the end of the first class and says, "I write poetry...." Hang on to your hat: hear comes a veritable hurricane of meaningless magniloquence.
But it's nice to have a student in the class who is jazzed about the material. I couldn't quite get a read on the class yet; I didn't identify anyone who was obviously out of his or her depth, but I'll know a lot more when I get their first writing--and their first reading notes.
I do hope that the block of time between my classes tomorrow turns out to be productive simply in terms of my feeling organized. (It doesn't matter if I actually am organized, you understand, just that I feel that I am.) I've got a lot of little bothersome mental gnats that I need to clear off so I can settle into some kind of work routine, find the rhythm of this very odd semester.
And please God, Cathy and I will stop discovering more mistakes that we made in scheduling.
Oh, but before I sign off for today: one student in the earlier section of 102 shows enormous promise. I remember talking to him in advisement and feeling he was a smart cookie--and so far, all signs are positive. He chatted with me briefly after class yesterday, and today I got an e-mail from him, asking if we would be using MLA 7 or 8. The fact that he even knew to ask is pretty marvelous. Another young man made a point of introducing himself to me after the evening class, and although he's slightly older than the average student and clearly more dedicated to doing well in school, he did keep saying how much he enjoys "typing"--especially if he can talk about something he's interested in. I hope he's equally interested in learning how to talk clearly and intelligently even when he's not necessarily interested in something (a much more important skill)--and that he truly does understand the difference between writing and typing. This ain't chimpanzees at typewriters having a blast whacking at keys and eventually (with the aid of a computer program to winnow out the letter strings that would form the correct words) producing Hamlet.
Early days, early days. There is no telling how the semester will shape up. I think I'm ready (or ready-ish) for the earlier section of 102 tomorrow--assuming the roster doesn't change too drastically over night. And now it's time to toddle over to the grocery store and then toddle home. Tomorrow being that other day we keep hearing so much about.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Well, this will be ... interesting.
This evening class thing is going to be a mixed bag, I think. I don't notice a preponderance of "older" students, as used to be the case--perhaps a few more who've been out there in the world for a while, but not many. One already annoyed the hell out of me by asking what two handouts were after I'd just spent a fair amount of time going over all the handouts. "Where have you been?" I asked him. I asked cheerfully enough, but my gut was saying, "Oh, hang it up. You've already demonstrated that you're not equipped for this." I could be surprised; certainly I have been before. More of the students were actually there than in the earlier section: I think only two were absent, which is pretty good for a rainy evening after dark.
I was disappointed that the three returning students from last semester who are in the earlier section were all absent today. Maybe they figured they didn't need to be there, as they already sort of know the drill, but I have to say that I don't feel this bodes well for them this semester. I truly hope they all button it up starting Thursday; I'll be quite unhappy if they end up screwing up a second time. Two of them are more naturally confident about their skills and abilities in any English course, but all three have loads of potential--if they don't sabotage themselves.
In between classes, we actually did have a P&B meeting; Cathy had a few things she wanted to go over with us, but she gave it the kiss of death by saying it would be a "short" meeting--which of course meant it lasted the entire 75 minutes. We certainly have a lot going on for the start of a term, between all the furor over adjunct schedules and grievances and a few SNAFUs with FT schedules that only came to light today: two faculty members who had one too many classes--and one who had one too few. That last was almost certainly my fault: I thought the communications had gone through about a substitution we had set up just in case--and apparently they hadn't. Fuck.
That said, I would like to start screaming and shaking people saying, "We need more office staff! We cannot operate like this!!" If our poor beleaguered Lori had enough help, someone would have caught the problems before today. Cathy and I were almost fated to screw up: her first time period and my first time without Bruce overseeing everything--and the madness of all the cancellations and schedule changes we were going through. My guess is that both Cathy and I are going to be obsessive about quintuple checking things for summer and especially for fall. But please heaven we'll have more help in the office at least by the time we get to doing fall schedules.
It's awfully damned early in the semester to feel like my strand of pearls just broke....
Anyway, I've been footling around long enough for this evening; my tendency is to stay here even when I'm not accomplishing anything very worthwhile, but I need to get my little self home. I'm hoping the gap between classes on Thursday proves to be a productive chunk of time for things like getting my triage list in order, making sure I'm ready for the second week of classes, that sort of thing. Tomorrow, class followed immediately by Advisement, and it will be a mob scene in Advisement, with students desperately trying to fill their schedules when they waited until the last second to register. Ah well. So it goes.
I was disappointed that the three returning students from last semester who are in the earlier section were all absent today. Maybe they figured they didn't need to be there, as they already sort of know the drill, but I have to say that I don't feel this bodes well for them this semester. I truly hope they all button it up starting Thursday; I'll be quite unhappy if they end up screwing up a second time. Two of them are more naturally confident about their skills and abilities in any English course, but all three have loads of potential--if they don't sabotage themselves.
In between classes, we actually did have a P&B meeting; Cathy had a few things she wanted to go over with us, but she gave it the kiss of death by saying it would be a "short" meeting--which of course meant it lasted the entire 75 minutes. We certainly have a lot going on for the start of a term, between all the furor over adjunct schedules and grievances and a few SNAFUs with FT schedules that only came to light today: two faculty members who had one too many classes--and one who had one too few. That last was almost certainly my fault: I thought the communications had gone through about a substitution we had set up just in case--and apparently they hadn't. Fuck.
That said, I would like to start screaming and shaking people saying, "We need more office staff! We cannot operate like this!!" If our poor beleaguered Lori had enough help, someone would have caught the problems before today. Cathy and I were almost fated to screw up: her first time period and my first time without Bruce overseeing everything--and the madness of all the cancellations and schedule changes we were going through. My guess is that both Cathy and I are going to be obsessive about quintuple checking things for summer and especially for fall. But please heaven we'll have more help in the office at least by the time we get to doing fall schedules.
It's awfully damned early in the semester to feel like my strand of pearls just broke....
Anyway, I've been footling around long enough for this evening; my tendency is to stay here even when I'm not accomplishing anything very worthwhile, but I need to get my little self home. I'm hoping the gap between classes on Thursday proves to be a productive chunk of time for things like getting my triage list in order, making sure I'm ready for the second week of classes, that sort of thing. Tomorrow, class followed immediately by Advisement, and it will be a mob scene in Advisement, with students desperately trying to fill their schedules when they waited until the last second to register. Ah well. So it goes.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Note to self: Do not try to predict the future
I've been watching enrollment since Cathy and I finished our wonderful adventure, and of course there's been a surge in late enrollment. It's entirely possible the late afternoon 102 on T/Th that was originally on my schedule but that we canceled might have gotten enough students to run. There is another section at that time that isn't full yet, so maybe not, but almost everything is now running at or near capacity. I'm sure there are students wailing about not being able to get a schedule that works, but I have very little sympathy--except for the odd case in which financial aid was uncertain until the last second or for some other reason beyond the student's control he or she was unable to register earlier.
Oh, and our new adjunct union rep filed two grievances, saying that two adjuncts "should" have gotten classes. One is the problematic adjunct I observed last semester--and who is now going to be observed unannounced and as often as we can legally manage; the other is an adjunct with incredibly low seniority who was only willing to work on Saturday mornings...
Well, she's new at the job and is trying very hard to do her job well--but I suspect the folks in labor relations (as well as the folks at the head of the union) are going to have a little conversation with her about what is a legitimate grievance and what isn't. I think Cathy and I are off the hook; we've explained pretty damned clearly why those adjuncts didn't get what they wanted, so now if it goes any further, the adjunct union has to press forward--and I doubt they will.
Backing up to the sudden surge in enrollment, it's been a teeny bit alarming to see my 102s suddenly start to bulge at the seams. I am, however, glad I didn't make any more copies of the syllabus than I did, as I've made at least three substantial changes to it since I made the copies. I've changed the syllabus for Nature in Lit, too. They're not drastic changes, but they're important changes, so I'll have to toss all the copies I made (thank god campus has a recycling program) and start all over. By Tuesday, however, I'll have a much better sense of how many students I actually have. The mid-day section is filled to capacity; the evening section is getting much closer. (Nature in Lit has been holding steady at 22 for a while now....)
I've been very happy to have a lot of work to do today, actually. Work is an excellent narcotic, for me at least. Some people clean house when they feel down; some people exercise. I do have other "drugs" of choice (chocolate and a good popcorn read, for instance), but sometimes work is the best one of all. The only downside to it is that I sit at the computer for hours on end--and then wonder why I feel so physically uncomfortable when I finally have to stand up.
I didn't get any work done on the online Nature in Lit, but that was a pretty distant possibility in any event. I may try to get to it tomorrow, but I have some life maintenance to do--and I'm meeting with the Timid Intellectual from semesters ago: she just finished her first semester at Mt. Holyoke, and I do look forward to hearing all about it. Still, if I can find a good sized chunk of time in there, it would be great to slam through a little more of that work, see how close I can get it to being ready before the end of the first week of classes. It's unlikely I'll have it ready and all the signatures in place for the first meeting of the College-Wide Curriculum Committee, but I really want it done as close to that date as possible. That way, I can get it to the February meeting of CWCC, to the Senate in March--and conceivably on the books for fall, which would be delicious.
I may even turn into one of those faculty members who teaches 50% online and only has to be on campus three days a week--but I doubt it. My hunch is I'll spend more time on any online course than I do on the face-to-face variety, and we all know that I spend waaaaaay too much time on my courses as it is.
I'm sure there was something more interesting I was going to note about the work today, but damned if I can remember what it was. Of course, I'm sure that some idiotic error will make itself known to me in the next few weeks and send me scrambling for a fix, but ah well. This is good enough for a Sunday--when I'm ostensibly still on "break" (whatever that is). And time just keeps rolling along.
Oh, and our new adjunct union rep filed two grievances, saying that two adjuncts "should" have gotten classes. One is the problematic adjunct I observed last semester--and who is now going to be observed unannounced and as often as we can legally manage; the other is an adjunct with incredibly low seniority who was only willing to work on Saturday mornings...
Well, she's new at the job and is trying very hard to do her job well--but I suspect the folks in labor relations (as well as the folks at the head of the union) are going to have a little conversation with her about what is a legitimate grievance and what isn't. I think Cathy and I are off the hook; we've explained pretty damned clearly why those adjuncts didn't get what they wanted, so now if it goes any further, the adjunct union has to press forward--and I doubt they will.
Backing up to the sudden surge in enrollment, it's been a teeny bit alarming to see my 102s suddenly start to bulge at the seams. I am, however, glad I didn't make any more copies of the syllabus than I did, as I've made at least three substantial changes to it since I made the copies. I've changed the syllabus for Nature in Lit, too. They're not drastic changes, but they're important changes, so I'll have to toss all the copies I made (thank god campus has a recycling program) and start all over. By Tuesday, however, I'll have a much better sense of how many students I actually have. The mid-day section is filled to capacity; the evening section is getting much closer. (Nature in Lit has been holding steady at 22 for a while now....)
I've been very happy to have a lot of work to do today, actually. Work is an excellent narcotic, for me at least. Some people clean house when they feel down; some people exercise. I do have other "drugs" of choice (chocolate and a good popcorn read, for instance), but sometimes work is the best one of all. The only downside to it is that I sit at the computer for hours on end--and then wonder why I feel so physically uncomfortable when I finally have to stand up.
I didn't get any work done on the online Nature in Lit, but that was a pretty distant possibility in any event. I may try to get to it tomorrow, but I have some life maintenance to do--and I'm meeting with the Timid Intellectual from semesters ago: she just finished her first semester at Mt. Holyoke, and I do look forward to hearing all about it. Still, if I can find a good sized chunk of time in there, it would be great to slam through a little more of that work, see how close I can get it to being ready before the end of the first week of classes. It's unlikely I'll have it ready and all the signatures in place for the first meeting of the College-Wide Curriculum Committee, but I really want it done as close to that date as possible. That way, I can get it to the February meeting of CWCC, to the Senate in March--and conceivably on the books for fall, which would be delicious.
I may even turn into one of those faculty members who teaches 50% online and only has to be on campus three days a week--but I doubt it. My hunch is I'll spend more time on any online course than I do on the face-to-face variety, and we all know that I spend waaaaaay too much time on my courses as it is.
I'm sure there was something more interesting I was going to note about the work today, but damned if I can remember what it was. Of course, I'm sure that some idiotic error will make itself known to me in the next few weeks and send me scrambling for a fix, but ah well. This is good enough for a Sunday--when I'm ostensibly still on "break" (whatever that is). And time just keeps rolling along.
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