yay, and ack
This semester's schedule is intense. I've got 4 classes to teach and will be working on our department's assessment committee, together with other similar departmental committees across the university. The goal is to establish new standards and procedures for student assessment and to implement them on a schedule.
This promises to be a lot of fun and a lot of work. So far I've loved it, especially the reading I've been doing on assessment. My director recently accused me of being at least part administrator. I was appalled for a minute, but realized that she's actually right. Some of the most fun I've had in academia besides actual instruction, which I love, has been developing curricula and new programs, raking them over, restructuring. I write my own exams & some of my materials every term... I am a sort of closet academic bureaucrat. Is this shameful?
But it's fun, even if it's also very not fun from time to time. It's creative to be able to make stuff from the ground up. Only. There are some ugly parts.
First of all, in our department, the committee is sort of making new rules. And you academics know that not all instructors take well to external direction, particularly when it will necessarily and directly (and not optionally) affect their classes and students and timetables and materials. Some will see restructuring that involves their participation as imposition into their personal, soveriegn classroom governments. This may be particularly true, I have found, among those who are of a certain age or who have established a comfy, secure routine and have no intention of deviating from it.
Also any large-ish institutional organism as unweildy as a language & culture department is by nature perpetually fluid, even sort of mildly out of control. The assessment work has shown me just how much my boss is actually responsible for. I have a new respect for her -- and I respected her just fine before -- since I've begun to feel like I'm trying to tuck an infant octopus into bed and he's not tired. Loose parts of him hang out everywhere and try to do things and he just wants a) to stretch his legs or just kick me and b) to dance, apparently.
Surface Properties is almost done. Also, made a veggie lasagna with piles of basil and garlic and fresh slices of mozzarella. Wowie, mama. I had it for breakfast.
This promises to be a lot of fun and a lot of work. So far I've loved it, especially the reading I've been doing on assessment. My director recently accused me of being at least part administrator. I was appalled for a minute, but realized that she's actually right. Some of the most fun I've had in academia besides actual instruction, which I love, has been developing curricula and new programs, raking them over, restructuring. I write my own exams & some of my materials every term... I am a sort of closet academic bureaucrat. Is this shameful?
But it's fun, even if it's also very not fun from time to time. It's creative to be able to make stuff from the ground up. Only. There are some ugly parts.
First of all, in our department, the committee is sort of making new rules. And you academics know that not all instructors take well to external direction, particularly when it will necessarily and directly (and not optionally) affect their classes and students and timetables and materials. Some will see restructuring that involves their participation as imposition into their personal, soveriegn classroom governments. This may be particularly true, I have found, among those who are of a certain age or who have established a comfy, secure routine and have no intention of deviating from it.
Also any large-ish institutional organism as unweildy as a language & culture department is by nature perpetually fluid, even sort of mildly out of control. The assessment work has shown me just how much my boss is actually responsible for. I have a new respect for her -- and I respected her just fine before -- since I've begun to feel like I'm trying to tuck an infant octopus into bed and he's not tired. Loose parts of him hang out everywhere and try to do things and he just wants a) to stretch his legs or just kick me and b) to dance, apparently.
Surface Properties is almost done. Also, made a veggie lasagna with piles of basil and garlic and fresh slices of mozzarella. Wowie, mama. I had it for breakfast.