Saturday, May 17, 2003
Almost back on an even keel in Kansas. We've had nothing but storms and rain but the rain part is a great start to the spring.
The trip home was more tiring than the one over - probably because the 10-hour leg was during the day and there was little sleeping on the flight. Analyze This was a ridiculous movie and the children's movie was shown to one child on board - most parents "escaping their children" had already seen it. When I got to St. Louis at 6pm Central (1 am in Rome) I kept walking around so that I wouldn't fall asleep and miss the last flight to Joplin. The Joplin flight was a bumpy one since there were so many thunderstorms but I was glad to be home.
I went into the office a little Wednesday and a little yesterday - a student actually came in yesterday which is always a good reminder of why I really do like my job besides the petty annoyances. Our new secretary seems like she is off to a good start. She even checked on whether I was "Dr." or "Mrs." - already a nice change from her predecessor. She's also had previous experience, including teaching degrees, and working in academic departments as a secretary so it all should work out for the best. I let her know I would let her get settled in before I started bombarding her with stuff for teacher ed in the fall. :}
The senior female professor has been a rock through all of this and I'm learning more about the new chair's leadership style. I also appreciate the insight of a colleague at one of our sister's school - he handles teacher ed but is also the chair. He said that the problems I'm having with one colleague who refuses to do some simple data collection is not something I needed to deal with - I have the responsibility and not the power. Luckily, he will be seeing my chair next month at a meeting and can talk to him "chair" to "chair." My colleague here is quite simply ignoring the fact that he has had everything explained to him over and over again and that we have to do some of these things to keep our teacher education program - whether he approves or not. My chair and I had a good heart to heart about it and I think he has at least a little better understanding of my viewpoint although I'm concerned he sees it as two faculty disagreeing instead of one trying to make sure we keep a program that deals with 3/4 of our majors and the other one is mainly obstructing it. The other colleague is not recognizing that I don't just do everything I"m told from the outside world and he's not going to get all the personal feedback as long as he treats me this way. He was busy trying to get a meeting called next week and I told the chair that that was definitely the wrong approach - people will only be upset with me when they are asked to come to a meeting when they are not being paid even to teach summer school - let alone come up to campus in between sessions. So I have retreated to the farm for most of the week. The chair has a good intention - he hasn't had meetings in the past when maybe he should have - but this is the wrong time - especially to coddle an old f&*( who doesn't remember very well and won't go check his meeting notes. But it will all work out.
I will work on my entry on "No Child Left Behind" for a history encyclopedia and my Houghton Mifflin project. Then back to Greenbush projects, including writing our latest Teaching Traditional American History grant - Mike has lined up Parsons and possibly Erie - perfectly equidistant on either side of the farm on Highway 59. Better go . . .
The trip home was more tiring than the one over - probably because the 10-hour leg was during the day and there was little sleeping on the flight. Analyze This was a ridiculous movie and the children's movie was shown to one child on board - most parents "escaping their children" had already seen it. When I got to St. Louis at 6pm Central (1 am in Rome) I kept walking around so that I wouldn't fall asleep and miss the last flight to Joplin. The Joplin flight was a bumpy one since there were so many thunderstorms but I was glad to be home.
I went into the office a little Wednesday and a little yesterday - a student actually came in yesterday which is always a good reminder of why I really do like my job besides the petty annoyances. Our new secretary seems like she is off to a good start. She even checked on whether I was "Dr." or "Mrs." - already a nice change from her predecessor. She's also had previous experience, including teaching degrees, and working in academic departments as a secretary so it all should work out for the best. I let her know I would let her get settled in before I started bombarding her with stuff for teacher ed in the fall. :}
The senior female professor has been a rock through all of this and I'm learning more about the new chair's leadership style. I also appreciate the insight of a colleague at one of our sister's school - he handles teacher ed but is also the chair. He said that the problems I'm having with one colleague who refuses to do some simple data collection is not something I needed to deal with - I have the responsibility and not the power. Luckily, he will be seeing my chair next month at a meeting and can talk to him "chair" to "chair." My colleague here is quite simply ignoring the fact that he has had everything explained to him over and over again and that we have to do some of these things to keep our teacher education program - whether he approves or not. My chair and I had a good heart to heart about it and I think he has at least a little better understanding of my viewpoint although I'm concerned he sees it as two faculty disagreeing instead of one trying to make sure we keep a program that deals with 3/4 of our majors and the other one is mainly obstructing it. The other colleague is not recognizing that I don't just do everything I"m told from the outside world and he's not going to get all the personal feedback as long as he treats me this way. He was busy trying to get a meeting called next week and I told the chair that that was definitely the wrong approach - people will only be upset with me when they are asked to come to a meeting when they are not being paid even to teach summer school - let alone come up to campus in between sessions. So I have retreated to the farm for most of the week. The chair has a good intention - he hasn't had meetings in the past when maybe he should have - but this is the wrong time - especially to coddle an old f&*( who doesn't remember very well and won't go check his meeting notes. But it will all work out.
I will work on my entry on "No Child Left Behind" for a history encyclopedia and my Houghton Mifflin project. Then back to Greenbush projects, including writing our latest Teaching Traditional American History grant - Mike has lined up Parsons and possibly Erie - perfectly equidistant on either side of the farm on Highway 59. Better go . . .
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