flying solo

uh oh. My other half in the land of chairdom has to fly home to a family emergeny in Spain so I will be ON MY OWN for the next six days. I have to run a faculty meeting on Thursday and, more horribly, spew out the first couple of our several letters of support for faculty sabbatical/grant/leave applications. This latter I was planning to take the lead on anyway, but it just feels a tad daunting knowing that editorial support will be in SPAIN on a significant time difference. Perhaps this is why I am well on my way through a bottle of red...or maybe I am just well on my way through a bottle of red.

ironies

So, last week we had to meet with an instructor whose last set of course evaluations were woefully poor. The meeting included such highlights as explaining that answering your cell phone during class on a regular enough basis to have it much noted in the evals, was just not on. There were also the usual laments about digresssions, homework never returned, and my personal favorite, the recomendation to get drunk before tests. Imagine my surprise when today I got through campus mail a notification of this instructor's nomination for a distinguished teaching award. I had to ring the person in charge and say I couldn't really see writing a glowing letter since I had just finished writing a summation of our little chat from last week and it was anything but a glowing endorsement of the person's teaching.

Administrative Update

The Co-Chairs have made it through the beginning of the semester, but not without some moments worth blogging about. Where to begin? Well, we appear to be a perfect team. We had been feeling this when we got through our first unpleasant meeting with a faculty member at which we played off each other and although faculty member left disgruntled, s/he was still on speaking terms with one of us (it wasn't yours truly as you will understand in what follows). This was highlighted in a meeting last week with a handful of the full professors. We have them meet as an advisory committee since each of them has more institutional memory than the two of us combined. It can be helpful, but also really grim. After this particular meeting, F said, "I thought that went pretty well." To which I replied, "What? Well? They called you "too sensitive" and me "Mussolini"... exactly how did that go "well"?" Well, I guess it did underscore our yin/yang-ness. (I think my siblings might empathasize with the Mussolini characterization.) Perhaps I should say what motivated the comparison. F and I subscribe to the wacky view that faculty members should attend departmental meetings and the yearly retreat. We realize this is 'out there'. After all, people are drawing a full-time salary and there is one meeting a month... but, hey, we think participation is in fact part of our jobs. So, after the retreat, we sent letters to all the absentee faculty noting their absence and hoping to see their full participation in the future. This did not go down well. I was reminded of my equally heinous record-keeping last spring when I kept track of who came to the job talks by our external chair candidates. One of the senior folks was heard to say that he wanted to "do something about the letter". Now, I'm wondering, perhaps he should go to our Dean to complain that we pointed out that he isn't doing his job and he is upset about this.
Other fun items.
Learned that one or our senior faculty members encourages a donation of a bottle of wine in return for writing a letter of recommendation....this came to my attention when the Mormon receptionist appeared holding a bottle at arm's length saying "what should I do with this?"
We see more clearly the ramifications of having no written by-laws or procedures. We cannot in fact vote on anything because we literally do not know how. What is a quorum? Do we vote by ballot or show of hands? Can people vote by proxy? By email?
Our working slogan is: Inventing the wheel, one spoke at a time!

Moscow shoes

As promised in an earlier post, I am uploading pictures of the impossible shoes spotted by me this summer on the streets of Moscow. This is just a brief sample. Enjoy!

Rainmakers

So our most recent camping trip has finally convinced us that we could in fact hire ourselves out to drought stricken regions. Our continued forays into the wilderness are nothing if not testimony to the the triumph of optimism -- "really, it must be possible for a family willing to drive hours in cramped quarters to be able to then sleep days in cramped quarters and at least not be WET". Last fall we made two such trips. First we went to Green River, Utah for Melon Days (mid-September). The idea was to camp overnight and then do a day raft trip. Rain was so bad that we spent the night at Craig's parents an hour away and then went to the raft company early morning. It was sunny but not warm. There is always a driver and a guide for these operations and, after conferring, they agreed that we could "do the Green". This meant a drive along a treacherous road in a van towing the raft. Well, we couldn't "do the road to the Green". At a certain grade we began to slide sideways towards the 30- foot drop to the river. Our guide retained a semblance of calm although later began reliving the experience in Yoda-ese: adventure, danger, a jedi seeks not these things. He also asked us not to send his boss copies of the pictures of us ankle deep in mud or bracing the side of the van as he eased it backwards so that it retained its inches from the edge margin. A month later we tried again. I had booked us a campsite at Goblin Valley for the Saturday night of UEA weekend (Utah educators gather and students get Thursday and Friday off). The site was booked for Friday so we stayed that night in a motel in, you guessed it, Green River. By the morning, after we had watched a serious amount of cable (we don't get many channels at home), the rain was full on. We drove hopefully onwards to Goblin Valley, where we discovered a sea of red mud. We joined the other unfortunates under a large picnic shelter, ate our sandwiches and watched the torrential flow. Ryan and Sam put on the rain ponchos which we had picked up at a gas station en route and headed out among the goblins. Here is a picture of the place so that you can imagine it:

Others also ventured forth. The rest of us stayed in the shelter and amused ourselves by watching the more hearty attempt to regain the shelter. This required ascending a steep and muddy slope. Some participants in this game were wearing flip flops which added to our entertainment value. Needless to say, there was no way we could pitch a tent in the muck, so we drove home.
I attributed these failures to off season planning. Perhaps mid-September or mid-October were too late. Next time we'll do August - full on summer month. Which brings us to our most recent trip.

Camping

This will merit a full blog on the order of why we have such appalling luck when we try to get back to nature en famille. This weekend's trip ended up beautifully with a gorgeous day on Sunday. We rafted down the Green River for a few hours and here are the pics. Prior to that there was lightening, rain, hail and White Trash in the campsite...

SHOWTIME

So, perhaps you're all wondering what being Chair and actually being in situ is like. First, there are a lot of meetings. I feel a surprising need to acquire a Blackberry or some such device. My brother-in-law who is also at the U and has also taken on an administrative position put it well this morning. We were at a day long (although I skipped out for other meetings after lunch) workshop for new administrators where we sat next to each other around a very large boardroom table in the very serious central administration building. At one point he leaned in and confided that he actually finds the "whole administrative thing remarkably enjoyable". I have to concur. I find myself composing memos in my head. And you know you're pretty much a goner when presentations from the U's internal auditing department about fraud are surprisingly riveting. As far as day to day operations, we are in high gear with classes starting on Monday. There is a kind of frenetic energy level which I love although I cannot see my desk and I have yet to finish unpacking my office.
Just to keep things really exciting we have a family camping trip Friday-Sunday.