Canada is very very small and other tales from Spork U.

[lolaraincoat]

So I was talking with a friend who teaches in another department at The University with the Name That Rhymes with Spork. She said, "I'm worried about this new Associate Dean

Comments

[musikologie]

I fail to see how filling out forms in one designated color stops waste. I am going to be horrible when I get an academic job. :P

[np_complete]

The only explanation for the blue ink I can think of is that it would photocopy better than, say, red ink would. But black ink would be just as good.

I'd heard about this type of intense pressure for conformity but never in a modern setting with real adults.

I'm surprised you don't have an electronic system for submitting expenses, actually. Although scanning receipts is if anything more tiresome than photocopying them.

[lolaraincoat]

Oh dear God don't put that thought about the electronic system for receipts out into the world. I shudder to think of the potential for disaster there. Our university can't keep a simple directory system going - you know, like a phone book? but on the web? Our system can't do that. It can't reliably deliver email to high-level administrators. There are grant application forms on our website which include addresses to which they are meant to be delivered, and those addresses are in buildings which were torn down two years ago. Oh, no no no. No. *quivers with fear*

And basically there is no logical explanation for the blue ink. It's just a maneuver to prevent transferring money from them to us, and also to distract us from more important battles with the administration.

[ancarett]

Oh, the first story amuses and saddens me. Mostly because I was never in a position to be mean to someone in high school and I was smart enough to realize that bad karma could ensue.

As for the unspoken forms mandate, I expect their reasoning is that blue ink both photocopies well and shows you aren't submitting a photocopied signature (they obviously haven't heard of colour copiers!). I am unsurprised by the way that they silently denied the requisitions: it's so characteristic of academic administration, isn't it?

WRT the copying mandate. There is a whole lot of scary going on out of the Copyright Board and on behalf of Access Copyright (the Axis of Evil for fair dealing concepts in Canadian education and culture). I expect everyone's going to be lurching back and forth for the next while. Be glad that you're getting a well-deserved break from this.

[lolaraincoat]

Yeah, and on top of that Spork U. in a brilliant cost-cutting maneuver has let its agreement with Access Copyright lapse. Consequently the copyright stuff is now at the point that we can't link our course websites - which are open only to ourselves and our students and, now, the lawyers for the university and the publishers - to our own library's website. I think we are allowed to describe on our syllabi how to find specific journal articles via our library's website, but only on the paper copies of the syllabi. I think.

Oy.

[ancarett]

We still have our agreement with the thieves at Access Copyright (they won't give anyone a list or access to know what's in their repertoire so how can you know if they have the right to license something you're using anyway and already licensed at the library through other agreements, augh!). It's maddening that they've forbidden even posting of a link within the closed system and symptomatic of how profoundly broken copyright is for Canadians these days.

[executrix]

I once read a book subtitled "How to Stay Legally and Profitably in Debt Forever" which suggested mixing up the checks and sending, say, the utility bill to the credit card company so you could get a few extra weeks' credit by saying "Golly, I must have put it in the wrong envelope!" Nowadays they'd just tack on another $40 in fees and be *grateful* but I think it's a sort of birth control device for requisitions--some people will just not bother to re-file for that $62, and as for the others, Maybe the Horse Will Talk.

[lolaraincoat]

I think that's it exactly. And it has the added benefit (from the Dean's POV) of giving us something to be confused and annoyed about at great length, thus diverting us from the natural path (to which all faculty members flow like rivers to the sea) of making the Dean's life difficult and avoiding doing any teaching.

[westerling]

I am coming to your city this weekend! Watch out for morris dancers!! (Totally not anything to do with your post, except that Canada is a small country!)

[lolaraincoat]

Oh! Cool! Where and when? We'd like to come see, if you wouldn't mind?

[westerling]

We are there for your plaisure. There will be other teams, music, carousing, etc.

I actually have no idea about the schedule except that some of it is at the Tranzac, which is here: http://www.tranzac.org/about-us/ and I am too lazy to write out the html tonight. TfMM (Toronto Morris Men, the f is silent) and Toronto Women's Sword are hosting us, so look for posters around? I don't know what their publicity is like. If I get anything else in advance, I'll send it along.

TORONTO YAY!!

[lolaraincoat]

Oh the Tranzac, we know the Tranzac, it's not that far from us. This is so cool! We'll be there!