Clearing out the mental dust-bunnies

Paul and I were talking about how sometimes a certain amount of futzing--organizing paper-clips, as he put it--is necessary just to clear out enough brain space to attend to the stuff that requires more thought. The way my mind works, there are several levels of brain attention and organization, ranging from the organizing paper-clips level up to high-order thinking about pedagogic goals and how to elicit the kind of thinking (and academic product) I want.

Today, I was somewhere in the middle, though I confess that one of the things I did just a bit ago takes my ridiculous meticulousness to new heights (or depths, depending on point of view). For years I've created a version of the assignment schedule just for me, so I have a quick reminder of what I need to hand out on certain dates as well as what I need to collect. (Otherwise, not gonna happen, my friends.) Today, I made a little table for myself of dates and what handouts I would need on those dates (the first day of classes is really overwhelming, and I probably have to seriously rethink what the students can handle--though handing out everything I have certainly would reduce the enrollment in my classes rather drastically). I just spent some time getting the forms ready to send a number of things off to Printing and Publications, in the hope/faith that they can turn them around by the end of the first week of classes. What I have shouldn't be a problem--on their big machines, even the longest of the jobs would take mere minutes--unless there are 5,000 other jobs from other professors (and various campus entities) lined up before mine. But the good people in Printing have always managed to get things to me super-fast, so... as I said, hope/faith. All I need is to ask Cathy whether I should forge her signature (or have one of the office staff sign for her or what), then send off the forms tomorrow.

I did a humongous load of copying today myself (emptied out the copier of paper twice--though I wasn't the only one using it, I hasten to say). I think I have all the first-day handouts for the 101s ready to put into the appropriate folders (the big, plastic accordion folders I use for class materials). I was very confident in how many copies I would need because (drum roll) both my sections of 101 are filled to capacity. Ka-boom.

I'll hold off on copying anything for SF until next week, when I see whether the numbers come up a little further. Right now, it's still at twelve--which is enough that it will run, but I expect a few more will enter the class, either because they're registering late or because something else got canceled and they need a Plan B.

Meanwhile, Cathy found someone to teach the one class we didn't have covered--and found not only a room but an instructor so we can open a new section of 100 (on the request of our dean). Paul was pissed off about us having to open new sections of things, as two electives were canceled under his feet, but I explained that what we're opening are comps, not electives: we're still canceling electives. Why the imbalance? Could be multiple factors, but the simple fact is, we do need more seats for the lower-level comps and fewer for each level above them (the departmental equivalent of a trophic chain).

Shifting gears--but tangentially connected, through the specific needs of the students in remedial or first-semester credit bearing comps: I had a brain flash earlier that came from the memory that, when teaching 101s, I invariably have to explain that when the assignment schedule says something is due, that means the student needs to walk in the door having done it, not that the student will begin the assignment on that date. And I suddenly thought, "Right! These are kids who haven't learned that there is a significant difference between the homophones 'do' and 'due.'" They often use one when they mean the other, clearly seeing them as interchangeable--so are they supposed to "do" something on x date or is it "due"? Opacity reigns. I hope I remember (twice: once for each section) to point out the difference between the words....

(Oh, and that reminds me: I need to add the "Static" handout to the list of things I need to provide. For those of you who may have missed the explanation--or have forgotten (and who could blame you?)--"static" is my word for the little, stupid but weirdly important errors that haven't mattered in the past but will now. They're what Paul calls "grave" errors (pun intended); I used to call them "bozo" errors--and have a lovely stamp that Paul had made for me, to save time marking them--but too many students believed that they personally were being called bozos, rather than believing that the error was bozonic. (I don't take specific points off for those errors any more, either: lots of them just lead to a general down-grade.) Paul and I have selected different errors to go on our personal lists (he's not driven as bonkers by homophone misuse as I am; I'm not driven as bonkers by incorrect use of block-format quotation as he is), but the principle is the same.)

Shifting gears yet again: I'll be back in tomorrow, doing more organizing and sorting out of what needs to be copied, and so on and so forth, so I'm going to wrap things up for tonight and toddle off. I was slated to meet the Timid Intellectual for dinner tonight--we've meant to get together all summer, and we rescheduled to next week (I want to hear more about her life at Amherst and the friends she's made in Massachusetts)--but now I have the evening to do whatever I want. Or whatever I feel is important in my non-work life. (Go straight home to practice fiddle and feed the cat? Or take myself out for dinner--maybe even a drink?) I'll figure that out as I pack up my little bags and waddle out to the car. And believe it or not, tomorrow will, in fact, be another day. Maybe everything will be easier to think about because I'll be stronger? We'll see.

Syllabus version 4,687

Well, slight exaggeration--but I have uploaded "complete, final" syllabi to the 101s at least six times now. And printed them nearly as often. (The wasted paper! The squandered printer toner!) This latest version wasn't even really necessary, I suppose, if it weren't for the fact that I am very picky about pagination and can't stand widows or orphans, and somehow the most recent version had some, so out it went, replaced by a new version that not only is free of sad and lonely, neglected lines but also includes the date/time stamp.

Ye gods and little fishes. (An expression I really think we need to use more often.)

Cathy and I engaged in yet another tussle with schedules, making sure we had someone to teach every class--including potential coverage if a full-time faculty member doesn't need a class we're now holding for him/her. There is only one class that is currently going begging for someone to teach it, but I'm sure we'll find someone somewhere.

And, as I intimated yesterday, we have next week in which to try to find the howling blunders and fix them.

Paul was back in the office today, getting his "sea legs" as the new assistant chair--and William was here as well, working to ensure that MDC courses all get enough students in them to run. So we had a full office, though we didn't really have a chance to celebrate the fact. Paul and I are going to have dinner together tonight, however, which will be lovely, and soon we'll plan a dinner in the City with William and Kristin--who is on a year-long sabbatical, the lucky woman.

Let me remind myself: one of the reasons this job continues to be a very good thing indeed is that I work with such marvelous people, a number of whom I am fortunate to count among my real, dear, close friends.

In terms of work flow, I didn't get much done on my own classes today (apart from interrupting myself in the midst of trying to do some organization so I could fix that syllabus). But that's OK. I will roll in at some point tomorrow and grind away at organization and the beginnings of photocopying. That will also involve figuring out what I can send to Printing and Publications, handouts that I already have but won't need for a while.

The prioritizing of tasks to be done on this semester's classes is still more than a little unclear to me; I'm bumbling around, doing whatever I happen to trip over, instead of having an actual plan. (I am, however, beginning to accumulate lists.) Perhaps tomorrow I can construct an actual triage list; that might be helpful.

I also will work a little on the online Nature in Lit--in part because Paul wants to watch me in action, so he gets more ideas for the class he's teaching online this semester but also because I did a little reading over lunch and have some ideas I want to be sure to include.

Ach, it's kind of endless, actually--as I say all too often. The work will consume as much time as I allow it to consume, and I'm not very good at limiting that, despite my best intentions to manage my exhaustion and stress levels more diligently. I suspect that I will make only incremental improvements in that area--I realize more and more that this is just who I am, for better or worse--or perhaps I need to simply accept that this is how I roll, as the saying goes.

Now, however, it's about time to figure out what needs to go in a bag to travel home with me, as well as to be sure I know what needs to come from home to the office with me tomorrow. (I've already left myself one voice-mail reminder; we'll see how many more I leave myself before I actually get home.) Dinner with Paul awaits. And truly, all bitching aside, life--including what I do for a living--is very good indeed.

Super-quick

I have about 12 minutes in which to post, so:

Cathy and I have covered all the FT faculty contingencies--I think. One of our colleagues has abruptly decided to retire--which is good for her, as her health is a serious concern, and not bad for us, as it gave us a few extra courses to distribute. (I didn't ask Cathy about the classes from our colleague who passed away (a euphemism I generally dislike, but the gentleness of it seems appropriate in this instance).) My SF class just hit the minimum mark: if it stays there or, better, continues to gain ground, that will be great. The later 101, which had low numbers, is now climbing rapidly: it will fill, I'm sure. And I bet next week we suddenly have to open more sections and find adjuncts to teach them. Fun and frolic.

I got out to look at the partial eclipse. I thought it was extremely cool to see (both through the shielded telescope and--even better--through a pair of eclipse glasses that I borrowed from a colleague). Interesting that many people seemed quite underwhelmed (including a lot of the kids who were there). But congrats to our colleagues in the Physical Sciences for putting on a whizz-bang event.

I think (I hesitate to say this, but I do think) that apart from the final essay for the SF class, I have all the handouts not only ready but printed and set to be copied. Of course, I had to print the syllabi again; I not only had made some changes over the weekend but I forgot that I'd decided to put the date/time footer on them. I am appalled at the amount of paper in the recycling bin, but at least we have a recycling bin, not just a garbage can.

I started working on making sure I have copies of all the essays the students in the 101s will read--and I need to think about the critical material I'll be providing for the students in the SF class for their second essay. I already did a bunch of research, so I don't need to reinvent that particular wheel; I just need to decide which of the essays I'm actually going to make available to the students and how I'll set that up. Thinking, thinking.

There are still a few classes that are not yet staffed, mostly those with low numbers (so they may yet get canceled)--but I'm really worried about the increasing possibility of howling errors in schedules. I hope to take some time after contract signing to work carefully with Lori, our most amazing office administrator (not sure of her actual title, but it should be empress, I think). I know she has ten thousand other things to deal with, but since we have some time (a lot of time, actually) between contract signing and start of classes, I'd like to use it to quadruple check everything and fix any problems before Labor Day.

One final note: I need a bigger desk. In fact, I need a desk about the size of this room. I'll talk to Paul tomorrow about whether we can put a file cabinet next to the computer table where I'm working right now. I think he said he has one at home he'd like to bring in, but if not, I think I'll buy one; there's plenty of space, and having a little additional surface area on which to spread stuff out would be terrific. Plus Paul could use the file-drawer space. Win-win.

Now, however, my 12 minutes are just about up, so I'll sign off, shut down the computer, and be back blogging on the morrow. The sky monster did not, in fact, eat the sun permanently, and all portents of doom are averted. Clearly the proper rites were observed. Whew.

Working on a Sunday...

Not working very hard, I assure you, though I have actually had to engage in a little thinking, as I've been working on the online Nature in Lit. I'm up to week 5 (out of 15)--and I'm realizing how much of the (rather pricey) textbook I'm leaving out of what students have to read. Many of the texts I think are important or that I particularly like are not in the book but are available on the web (Emerson's Nature, for instance, or Whitman's "Song of Myself"). I hope that as I get past the 19th century, I will rely more heavily on the textbook. No: let me rephrase that. I will rely more heavily on the textbook--even if that means slight disappointment that I can't assign something I really love because it isn't in the book. The selection in the textbook is wide-ranging and wonderful, and in fact it can expand my horizons (as there are works in it that I have not read but would like to know at least a little bit). But I'm up to Thoreau's "Walking," which is in the anthology--and rather than using my diminishing mental faculties to try to figure out what to say in the overall set-up for the reading and for the discussion boards (not to mention finding images, which is fun but dangerous in terms of gobbling up time), I've decided to set it aside for now. Again.

I did, however, have another realization about the week by week schedule for that class, and how many weeks of actual content I have to produce: not only can we discount the first and last weeks, there are at least two weeks in the middle of the semester when students will be writing essays. I do have to monkey around with the assignments for the essays, but it will be a process of tinkering with assignments I've used in the past, not anything I have to create from scratch. So, well, that's good.

I'm also bracing myself for tomorrow, when Cathy and I dive back into scheduling. There are still a number of courses assigned to FT faculty that have alarmingly low numbers. Some are just under the mark: we've been using 12 students registered as the line at which a course is considered full enough to run, and some are at 10 or 11 students (including both Paul's elective and mine). But one elective assigned to a full-time faculty member only has 5 students in it at this point--and it's been holding there for a long, long time. Cathy and I are baffled by that: it's a section of American Short Story, and usually the word "short" in the class title is sufficient inducement to get students to sign up. (When I've taught it in the past, my first question to students is, "How many of you signed up because of the word 'short'?" and usually a majority of the hands go up.)

However, I texted Cathy about my concerns today and she seems very calm about it all, so ... fair enough. If she isn't worried, I won't be. She may have inside info that I lack about what our dean will allow, given the fact that students still have two weeks in which to register. I'd feel more sanguine if all the other electives were filled to capacity, but there are a lot of seats out there. (Using 12 students as the benchmark still leaves a lot of room in a class that's capped at 31.) I'll be interested to hear what Cathy's thinking is. Maybe she just has genius plans for how to shift things around. I wouldn't be surprised: she's like that.

I was, in fact, surprised to see that apparently she took rapid action on the sad news that one of our faculty died last week. We've been very concerned about his health for a long while (I may have mentioned this in an earlier post): he took a few very serious falls simply walking across campus. But he loved teaching and wouldn't consider retiring. We're all sad to lose him--but I have to be honest and say that my second thought was "Oh, we have to find someone to teach his classes." I went on Banner to see what was assigned to him--and found nothing. Apparently Cathy had already taken his name off the classes (and may have reassigned them, for all I know). She's nothing if not on top of things, always.

In fact, I worry about the fact that--in my estimation--she doesn't delegate enough. She did most of the adjunct scheduling while I was at the dermatologist's, instead of leaving it for me to work on the next day (and I know damned well she has about 10 zillion other things she has to do at the same time). The office staff and I are trying to get her to hand over more stuff that we can do for her, but I have to say, I completely understand her M.O., as I'm very much the same. 1. I will worry about something until I know it's done, so I usually feel I might as well do it and 2. I am enough of a control freak that I don't really believe anyone will do anything as well as I would.

But I'm working on letting both of those tendencies go.

Shifting gears: Cathy recently found the old faculty web pages (I didn't even know they were still accessible), and when she saw the link to my blog, she raised alarm bells. She's concerned that I might be charged with violating confidentiality regarding personnel issues--even though I don't use names. And I understand her concern, but I refuse to take the blog down, even though I was perfectly happy to remove the link from my faculty web page. I'm sure someone determined enough could still make the connections (I don't hide the name of the campus all the time, after all, and there's enough information available with first names that someone who really wanted to follow the clues could easily figure out who's being talked about), but in my estimation, this is a freedom of speech issue. I don't think I'm doing anything that really violates any necessary confidentiality concerns, now that there is no explicit link between the blog and my presence as a faculty member on campus. I do post to the blog using the computer at work, so I know the administration could easily nail me about it, if the issue were to arise. I may be stupid or naive, but I don't think I have to worry. I understand why Cathy urges caution, and she may be right. But for now, I'll just keep on as I've been doing.

But speaking of the blog, where it is, and all that, for a long while now I've considered migrating it to another platform, one that's a little more user-friendly in allowing followers in particular. I won't do that, however, unless I can sit down with my Montana-based computer guru and work with him on getting it all set up so my followers can still find me and so on.

Which is an issue for so far down the road it's practically invisible. For now, I'm going to switch my brain off for the rest of today and lapse into drooling torpor. It's a gorgeous summer day out there, perfect for doing bugger-all nothing. So, that's what I'm going to do.

Change of plan

I decided not to go in to campus today, opting to work on the online Nature in Lit instead of on photocopies for my classes. Part of the decision was sheer laziness, but part of it was the sense that I will feel better, psychologically, if I at least dip my toes back into the online course, get a sense for what I have and haven't done, and what I want to do. I will say, there is a truly daunting amount of work to be done, and not just scut work either, but real thinking. If it were just cut-and-paste organizing, that would be challenging enough (making sure all the right links are in the right places and so on), but I actually have to write out some ideas I want students to consider as they read, provide the kind of guidance that would normally arise out of my responses to whatever they bring in to class. I did a little of that kind of written guidance for the SF class this fall (and god, do I ever hope it works), but this is a bit more complex--because the students in the Nature in Lit class will be reading something new/different almost every week (instead of an entire book taking up several weeks of class time). So--leaving out the first and final weeks, when no reading will take place--that means 13 written "lectures." I have to decide what I'm going to have them read first; then I have to figure out what I want them to notice in particular as they read, or what background I think will help them, or (usually) some combination of the two.

I also feel compelled to provide images for each week's reading, something to lighten up what is otherwise very text heavy (and daunting for students who aren't used to doing a lot of reading). And--in terms of the overwhelming aspect of text itself--I am compelled to keep my "lectures" as brief as possible while providing at least the big landmarks (as it were). Searching for images is actually pretty fun; the challenge is getting any kind of reasonable information about the images to provide as photo credit. I can always say where I found the image, but sometimes the place where I found it doesn't bother to mention where the poster found it. For instance, I found a very nice print of the streets of Philadelphia in the 18th century--and no clue about the artist, when it was made, what collection owns it: nada. I'm trying to set a good example for my students by always giving credit for the stuff I find elsewhere (something I do not do, I have to admit, when I'm on Facebook--or even in this blog). It's all too easy even for me to fall into the "it's on the web so it's public property" thing.

No wonder students struggle with understanding plagiarism these days: they're used to treating everything on the web as belonging to any and everyone. Makes me realize I need to spend more time talking with them about why we can't get away with that sort of common use in academic settings. The main point is to get them to understand that it's important for them to actually do something with their own brains: to originate material, not rely on someone else's brain to do all the work. I think that may be a more challenging concept than it seems to someone on my side of trenches.

Be that as it may. I realize that I have run out of gas for more work on anything today. I did change the syllabi for this fall's classes--again (adding the technological requirements for what word processing software will work for them--and letting them know they can't do all their work on their phones but actually have to use a computer every now and then)--but my mental channels have all silted up for the moment, so I'm going to call a halt to the proceedings for today. I don't know if I'll get any work done tomorrow, or when I'll next be productive in terms of my actual job. (I will certainly be productive in other areas of my life, including enjoyment.) But whenever I'm back at it, you'll be sure to know.

Progress is made...

Well, Cathy and I got as far as we could with the adjunct schedules. There are two classes we don't have staffed; we're waiting to hear back from an adjunct on one of them, and the other is newly created, so at the moment it doesn't have enough students in it to run, though chances are very good that it will. We think we have an if/then contingency place if it does run. We also did as much as we could to protect full-time schedules, but there are a couple that leave us praying for a sudden surge in enrollment: whatever if/then scenarios we have planned will be complicated to implement, and that's putting it very mildly. But we can't really do more until we see what happens to enrollment over the weekend. It really is frustrating that we have to pull the trigger so soon, when we know--absolutely know--that students will be scrambling for classes right up through the first week in September, and if we close sections that are running light now, those students won't have any place to go.

The other problem is room: actual, physical space in which to hold the classes. As soon as we cancel something, the room disappears--unless we have something else to immediately slot into the space. Well, "disappears" as in another department in equally desperate circumstances grabs it. It is the Oklahoma land rush out there.

And I did start printing and organizing files for my classes. The only handout I can think of that I haven't yet worked on at all is the final essay for the SF class, but I'm going to let that dangle for a little while. I'm pretty sure I have everything else worked out. (Whether I'll still like it when it comes time to use it is a different question.) Also, after printing the same thing about 40 times and then being unsure which was the most up-to-date version, I decided that I would start adding a footer to that kind of document, so I can see at a glance which version is the most recent. I probably should add such footers to everything. Not only will it help me be certain that I am using the latest version, it will let me see when something has been languishing without reconsideration or fine-tuning for a long while and probably could use to be revisited.

I'm going through my usual thing of feeling somewhat baffled by the fact that I'm not running around like my hair is on fire. It seems like I should have to be getting ready to dash off to go somewhere, do something, but nope. There certainly is plenty of work I could be doing (getting some licks in on that online Nature in Lit, for instance), but I'm going to call a halt to work-type proceedings today. I'm still getting my body used to the early to rise (if not early to bed) routine, and since I had a spell of serious insomnia last week, I'm still a bit behind on the whole "rested and ready" part. I will, therefore, pick stuff up off the floor, then make sure I have all my toys and head home.

Strictly speaking, I don't have to come in tomorrow--but I probably will, to start making photocopies of handouts if nothing else. Of course, I still don't know how many handouts to make for the SF class or for the late-day 101, but the other 101 is full to capacity (ka-boom, like that, from yesterday to today), so I know I need at least 27 copies of all the handouts just for that one section. I can always make more copies as my classes grow, I suppose--or just wait until next week to make the copies for the other 101 and the SF class. The more I think about things, the more fluttery and anxious I get, so I'm going to try to retain a Zen-like calm and head for home--tomorrow being another day, as we all know all too well.

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.