update on motto

oh my can they interrupt! We had our meeting today to unveil the Language Center and the troglodytes were out in full force. I think most painful was the admonition that "this proposal could have garnered support but we were never consulted." And I sat there making a mental list of the things on which we have consulted over the last four and a half years and the consul tees' miserable track record:

1) requiring study abroad: discuss, discuss, discuss, vote in favor..... and then REJECT in practice.

2) curriculum meetings: attend, atte... oh, not so much; why would we need to discuss that?

3) departmental governance bylaws: draft, draft, draft, discuss, discuss, --- oh, did I mention that we are still only discussing the introductory paragraph... (big raspberry noise)

4) graduate studies brought in line with national best practices.... oh, please, do we have to? we want to be insular and mediocre.

5) required departmental courses: sure, ok... do I have to teach them, oh, ok.... do our students really have to take them? oh, 'required'? but, well they aren't really useful, are they....?

Stay tuned for the part where I take my sabbatical next year and then transfer to the Linguistics Department....