oh, seize the way
recently i was asked by a close professor of mine to be the student representative on the sub-committee for a one-time hiring of temporary/visiting/adjunct faculty to permanent faculty. i laughed at him and told him that it was so unfair of him to ask because he knows that i can't say no. he laughed and said that there were many reasons why he was asking, and that was definitely one of them.
i said "maybe" and went to their first meeting which got me all excited about the whole process, so i said "yes" even though it eliminated my one solid free day from my schedule.
one of the other main reasons that david asked me to do this was our mutual investment in one of the visiting faculty who is applying. this professor has opened me up to things that i never knew were possible; he has done similar things for a great many of my peers, in fact, he is mostly responsible for the vibrant creative writing/book arts community here at evergreen. i can't imagine the school without him, and it's insane to me that he's still not permanent faculty.
the sub-committee has been really negligent about my involvement. it seems like most of them are entirely disinterested in having a student on the committee, which really pisses me off. aren't we supposed to be collaborating here? we were supposed to have a meeting this afternoon at 3, by which we were to have all of the applications read (there are 12, and they take a looooooong time to read), and have all of our rating sheets filled out.
well, today while i was reading applications one of the committee members who seems to actually be excited about having a student on board came in to do some reading and i asked him about the printed out email that was stuck on the wall about changing meeting times. it even says in the email "someone forward this to kate robinson, i don't have her address." he said that the meeting had been changed to wednesday.
there was really only one person who could have done it, the woman who organized the committee, and she didn't.
i went across the hall to ask about the oversight, and the hiring lady (not her real title, can't think of it, but she's not on the committee, she's like the overseer) had no answers for me except that yes, in fact, the meeting has been changed to wednesday. and she finally added me to the email list.
awesome. i have my internship on wednesday.
so it's frustrating.
part of me wants to just quit, but i can't do that really at this point. reading the applications was a really emotional process for me. i wasn't surprised at the tears welling up while reading the above mentioned teacher's application and portfolio. he means a lot to me, and i'm an emotional person, so reading his impassioned letters about teaching and the recommendations/evaluations put forth by his students and colleagues naturally stirred me.
i just didn't expect that to happen with all of them! practically every five minutes i'd get that catch in my throat reading someone's mission statement or cover letter, or a collegial recommendation, or a student evaluation, or a class handout, or a syllabus...
these are teachers i don't know at all, but they are so passionate, so varied in their thinking and approaches to teaching, so impressive in their knowledge and application of interdisciplinarity. EVERGREEN IS SO FUCKING COOL!!
i'm overwhelmed.
how can we just pick four? most of the applicants have been team teaching at evergreen for far longer than the requisite nine quarters. in fact, one of them that i read today has team-taught here for THIRTY-SEVEN QUARTERS!!!! that's insane! how is it possible that she's still not a regular faculty?
so, i want to quit, but i just can't. i feel very strongly that there needs to be a student voice on this committee, and at this point it's me or nobody.
they'd better start respecting me or there's going to be hell to pay!
i said "maybe" and went to their first meeting which got me all excited about the whole process, so i said "yes" even though it eliminated my one solid free day from my schedule.
one of the other main reasons that david asked me to do this was our mutual investment in one of the visiting faculty who is applying. this professor has opened me up to things that i never knew were possible; he has done similar things for a great many of my peers, in fact, he is mostly responsible for the vibrant creative writing/book arts community here at evergreen. i can't imagine the school without him, and it's insane to me that he's still not permanent faculty.
the sub-committee has been really negligent about my involvement. it seems like most of them are entirely disinterested in having a student on the committee, which really pisses me off. aren't we supposed to be collaborating here? we were supposed to have a meeting this afternoon at 3, by which we were to have all of the applications read (there are 12, and they take a looooooong time to read), and have all of our rating sheets filled out.
well, today while i was reading applications one of the committee members who seems to actually be excited about having a student on board came in to do some reading and i asked him about the printed out email that was stuck on the wall about changing meeting times. it even says in the email "someone forward this to kate robinson, i don't have her address." he said that the meeting had been changed to wednesday.
there was really only one person who could have done it, the woman who organized the committee, and she didn't.
i went across the hall to ask about the oversight, and the hiring lady (not her real title, can't think of it, but she's not on the committee, she's like the overseer) had no answers for me except that yes, in fact, the meeting has been changed to wednesday. and she finally added me to the email list.
awesome. i have my internship on wednesday.
so it's frustrating.
part of me wants to just quit, but i can't do that really at this point. reading the applications was a really emotional process for me. i wasn't surprised at the tears welling up while reading the above mentioned teacher's application and portfolio. he means a lot to me, and i'm an emotional person, so reading his impassioned letters about teaching and the recommendations/evaluations put forth by his students and colleagues naturally stirred me.
i just didn't expect that to happen with all of them! practically every five minutes i'd get that catch in my throat reading someone's mission statement or cover letter, or a collegial recommendation, or a student evaluation, or a class handout, or a syllabus...
these are teachers i don't know at all, but they are so passionate, so varied in their thinking and approaches to teaching, so impressive in their knowledge and application of interdisciplinarity. EVERGREEN IS SO FUCKING COOL!!
i'm overwhelmed.
how can we just pick four? most of the applicants have been team teaching at evergreen for far longer than the requisite nine quarters. in fact, one of them that i read today has team-taught here for THIRTY-SEVEN QUARTERS!!!! that's insane! how is it possible that she's still not a regular faculty?
so, i want to quit, but i just can't. i feel very strongly that there needs to be a student voice on this committee, and at this point it's me or nobody.
they'd better start respecting me or there's going to be hell to pay!