Not in the classroom

What we do when we're not in the classroom.

I thought I should give an explanation for my extended absence. Chaos reigns at my place of employment. After almost a year of fact-finding and discussion, our Faculty Senate decided to poll the faculty for a vote of no confidence in the present college president's leadership. The whole thing is unpleasant, but I think ultimately necessary, because the president's leadership is appalling at best. No people skills, a dictatorial manner that ignores procedure, implied threats to disband the Senate or its representative body -- the usual suspects. That's part of my committee assignment. I also was assigned to a contract-mandated committee that approves faculty development requests -- huge amounts of work because the administration didn't appoint its share of the members till January and we've met once, to find that there are about 50 applications waiting, some since June. Plus I'm on a really cool assessment committee, but that means working on an assessment project. And then there are the job applications. So I can't blog more till I get on top of this stuff.

Update

Well, as many of you know, I am currently filling in for a FT faculty member on an admin. assignment. We had hoped that he would be granted a long-deserved sabbatical and that I'd be able to continue on a PT contract as a safety net in case none of my applications pan out. Sadly, he is getting no sabbatical, something that is really incomprehensible to many of his colleagues. And that means I've got no safety net. So blogging may be a bit haphazard for a while more -- job apps are even more important than they were yesterday.