When we were humbled

Today my fearless co-chair and I met with someone who came highly recommended. Let's just say she spends her days helping dysfunctional academic units get back on track. We got on to her when I ran into some colleagues from another department last week after their annual departmental retreat. I KNOW how crazy things go in their meetings so imagine my amazement when my coy "So how was your retreat?" question was answered "great." GREAT? What happened to "and then he said, and then she said, and then he voted....etc." Above mentioned woman happened is what. Apparently she nips manipulative language in the bud, tells people they have been heard and there is "no need to say it again." Immediately I was all: "Can she please come to our retreat" and I emailed her and we met today to gauge the lay of the land. Two brief stories about recent discussions in our department and she said: "You all have no business meeting." Ok, she didn't have the southern accent, but that was the message. But, we countered, we don't want to be the autocratic nightmare that our predecessor was, we need to meet to get faculty input, our faculty insist on "faculty governance"... And in the imitable words of Kathryn Dixon "And how's that working for you?"

Ok, its not. Our human resource consultant's advice: tell them that you have observed that our meetings are not productive, that you want to be productive, that until further notice we will not meet. Wow. I can't wait. Came back to the office, cancelled the afternoon of Friday's retreat leaving only the purely informational morning.