rah rah

So, one of the challenges of department leadership is publicity. You have to let people know who you are, what you have to offer, and hope that some of them will want to partake. We haven't been terribly good at this, but there has been some movement. The college has encouraged us all to have a professional portrait done. This so that we are "press ready". You know, something eventful happens, faculty member X steps up as talking head, and said portrait can be dispatched. These pictures now hang in a glass case outside our deparment where they don't do much to inspire. First, we are rather decimated in ranks -- many people just didn't acquiesce to the studio session ---; second, those of us that did, look not so appealing. We also have a departmental brochure which sends a curious message. At some point, someone chose the slogan "gateway to the world" as our mantra and in keeping with that the front of the brochure features a black and white photograph of gates to a cemetery. What message are we sending? We are "gateway to the underworld"? "Studying with us is like being dead"? We have our work cut out for us.