23 Days, and Other Things

It's full spring here in Red Neck City;

Don't know why these look so washed out; overexposure didn't show up on the 'regular' image.

again, overexposed - but the deep purple iris 

are always the first iris that emerge

I don't even like pink flowers, but these tulips (from Amsterdam)

are just gorgeous.

The neighbor's wisteria

I just love these yellow roses against my purple studio

I've worked hard on these gardens, and this year is bittersweet. 

Joy at the beauty, pleasure in my part in creating it, 

deep awareness that this is my last spring with it.

17 Days, 80 days

17 days of classes. 80 days (approx) until The Big Move. The house in Retiring Town is undergoing inspection today, and the builder walk-through is Monday. Closing 15 April. I'd told the builder not to put in the standard (and odd) 4" backsplash, that I would do it myself because I wanted one that would go clear to the cabinets. He offered to bid it out - so I sent him pictures and item numbers at Big Home Store, he bid it at a very reasonable cost - I had him do it. He'd done everything else I wanted with no problem and high quality, so I sent the go-ahead, reiterating that I wanted invisible grout lines. Told him that if his guy couldn't do it the way I wanted that I'd so it myself.

Monday night I got pictures of the tile installation... and was furious. Totally, irrationally angry. I hadn't realized that such a thing would be such a big button for self, but WOW. Sure was. Told the realtor it wasn't right; she dithered, tried to talk me into letting it go. Nope. Not gonna listen to that shit. We exchanged a flurry of emails - mine increasingly firm as to 'absolutely not; rip it out" hers conciliatory and assuring me that it'd be fine, to just let it be. Finally I got down to it, sent off another email directly to the selling broker and the builder, telling them to either make it right by redoing it the way I want, or to tear it out, repair the wall and refund my check.

The builder must have the patience and serenity of a saint. First thing yesterday he sent me an email, accepting responsibility and assuring me that I'd get a full refund and a clean wall. I'm actually good with doing it myself; it'll be a nice thing for me to do and say 'I did that.' I did it here in my current house, and every time I see my backsplash, I'm happy with my work and my accomplishment. So be it.

Classes proceed. Nothing different from any other term - there are good classes, excellent students, piss-pour students. At this point, as I've tried multiple times to explain to them, they've pretty much established the range of the grade. The ones that cannot possibly pass the class are still enrolled, still come to class. The ones that are doing well continue to worry about doing well. The in-between ones are just marking time, with no real interest in or possibility of doing A work. What's different is my attitude towards their opting out: I regret their choices, but it's their choice.

Heard something yesterday: every time they don't raise their hands to answer a question, they are teaching themselves to accept what they have, to quit striving, an act of self-erasure. They choose to silence themselves and announce to the world that they are not to be heard. That struck a cord; I'll see if I can get them to hear that today. 

20 days, and counting

April is the last month here. May, I'll be traveling, and June will be spend traveling AND moving. I should be in my new house in PNW somewhere around July 4. Which will signal my own independence from Un-named University, and the beginning of my own new life.

Moving is, for me, a liberation and always a new beginning. Some people hate the hassle and chaos of moving - I never have. I'm not crazy about the details of moving - but the act itself is just a pleasure, such a rush, that once again I am looking forward to it.

Yesterday I bought boxes, and will spend part of this morning and afternoon packing up the winter clothes for the move. I'm going to spring for the moving company to pack most of the house - but there are bits/pieces I want to do myself. Clothing is something they'd do if I didn't already need to make the seasonal swap. I'm also going to use this opportunity to purge a bunch of stuff, clear out stuff I've been keeping for various reasons. I'm tired of my dishes - and have been drinking out of your basic jelly glasses for years. Those'll not make the move - garage sale or Salvation Army. My big oak desk - which I don't use - will also go into the garage sale. Particle board bookshelves, that kind of stuff. I'm looking forward to clearing out some stuff.

What I'm not looking forward to is the garage sale. Ick.

Moving Forward

• The Mess is over. The dean said he's going to accept the recommendations of the P&T committee; my record is cleared. Finally, forever and done.
• The faculty voted me Emerita status, which makes me absurdly happy. Going out with my head held high and honored by my colleagues. Battered, bruised but whole and redeemed.
• Am currently in Seattle. This is the region I'm moving to in the fall, and I wanted to make sure it was a good thing before committing. I am now not only completely committed, but under contract for a new house! I am seriously in love with my new town - Sequim (pron. Skwim) WA - and my new house. Stopped total strangers on the streets, talked to anybody/everybody we could. One and all said they really love the place and recommend it highly. It's on a bunch of 'best places to retire' lists, and housing prices are reflecting that. I had to pay more than I wanted to, but I'm very pleased with the house, the area and even my new neighbors! My builder is proving very easy to work with and amenable to changes, the house is actually bigger than the one I'm currently living in in Unnamed City and much better insulated. I am thrilled.
• I am so ready to move forward. Classes end the first week of May, and I'll be finished as soon as I turn in grades. Then a summer of travel and fun before moving in August. As quickly as I can in August, because I really want to get up here permanently.
• I feel really good about all of this. Profoundly lucky and fortunate to be able to do it. Very very grateful.

The Committee Has Spoken

The Mess has entered the final phase - hopefully. The P&T Committee sent me a copy of their recommendation to the dean, that I be retained as a professor. They noted that the portfolio was light on evidence as it covered only two years rather than the normal 6. Actually, that tells me that they didn't really read the narrative portion, which explained that it actually only covered a single year and a wildly atypical year at that.

However. The bottom line was that they saw no reason for the portfolio (which tells me that no, indeed, the Dean did not explain why I'd submitted the damned thing) or to change the prior evaluation of my work (which was a rating of "exemplary").  Now it is all in the Dean's lap.

In the final term of my career at Un-named University, I have done something I can't remember ever doing before: I have gone two weeks in the middle of the term without a single class. Two weeks ago, the university closed the campus for weather on Monday, and Tuesday I left for Major Conference. I arranged for the classes to see some films while I was gone. Then last Monday, I cancelled class because I was very ill with a cough that rattles my toes (yes, present tense, the cough persists); then UU cancelled classes anyway. Tuesday-Friday, I got up every day and discovered that the cough was simply too awful to subject anyone else - even though the doctors said I wasn't contagious, I didn't want to risk it. Not to mention that every time I tried to speak or walk and breathe I started coughing again. Bottom line, if I can get in tomorrow without dislodging a lung, it'll be the first time in two weeks that I've met with a class.

Which means that I can either pretend everything is on schedule, or change the schedule in the hope/plan that I'll miss no more classes. Luckily, I don't do content-focused classes - I don't have to 'get through the Cold War' events, although I will get the concepts, issues, trends and questions. Because those aren't event-centered, but process-centered.

UU's leadership has pretty well destroyed my loyalty to the institution; my students and my friends are what I will focus on in these last weeks.

48 Days

Yep, I'm into counting the days - class days - until retirement. When I was in the Air Force, military types used to count and measure days they were 'short.' So when you got down to single digits, you'd say things like "I'm so short I'd need a ladder to get to a snake's belly."

Decades later, I'm finding that grove rather comforting - I'm short. 48 days until I can leave UU. This is a very good thing. The place is self-destructing around us, and the people who screwed me over last year are now facing their own existential crisis. The Prez is under fire not just from the faculty and staff, but even the Board of Trustees is after hir ass. The Dean had yet another blow up in a faculty meeting, got everybody (except me, cuz I'm so short) riled up over The Report and what it will do to the Arts & Sciences programs. Programs to be cut? Oh, you know. All the modern languages, most of the arts (studio, ceramic, etc). The university cabinet had sequestered themselves to make the hard decisions - but despite constant assurances of complete transparency, there is none. Nobody has any idea what they'll decide, when, how or if. Nobody knows if there are options for appeal. Turns out that the various Task Forces were instructed by the consultants to ignore the university mission as they determined priorities. How does that work? Dean is furious. And it turns out that - a year after they selected the consultant - that somebody finally looked at his CV. Seems he's linked to ALEC. Oh. Delightful. No wonder he wanted us to ignore the liberal arts focus of the university....

I'm back to doing glass. This is great news, as I've not been able to comfortably work on anything for months. All I've really done is fuse, and then turn the bits into jewelry. These are simply millefiori; all you do is cook 'em, and they turn out like this. Then I add findings, and all of these turned into earrings! Great fun, nearly instant gratification. Made 18 pairs of earrings and half a dozen pendants last weekend. Ran out of findings... so had to stop mounting. Then I ran out of millefiori, so had to buy more of those.

Now I need to start selling them, so that I can recoup my costs and support my habit. Gah. And keeping better records would help too... 

The Report is Out

Since last spring, RNU has been undergoing prioritization. How you define that seems to vary by individual, and what we all expected varied as well. Tuesday the first set of reports came out.

First, several of us have decided we're in the wrong profession - we need to be educational consultants. The money spent on this study - just to the consultant - was absurd, given the process and outcomes. Seems Mr Consultant offered a few talks (all on one day, so a one day lecture schedule), some written material that outlined the process (taken from a book, so not customized in any way), and... not much else. Hey, I can take the book, these reports, and repackage them, sell 'em on and cash in!?!

Second, the reports - there are two of them - are very different. The academic programs one is a long list in five sections (quintiles). In that report, the 228 programs on campus are 'ranked' into quintiles. There are no hints or anything as to what the committee/task force suggests, and the recommendations are so vague as to be worthless.  The lists are simply Q-5, with no explanation as to what those quintiles mean or imply. Certainly, the recommendations and conclusions are not worth the hours of labor that the TF put into the project. The staff/support report is, by contrast, amazing. It goes through every since 'function' and articulates what needs to happen for that function. Suggests massive reorganization and centralization (it's astonishing how silo-ized our campus is - probably 5 different groups doing the same job), elimination of much of the administrative bloat (yay!), stripping lots of positions and freebies out of the president's office (we had no idea they were doing all of that non-university-related stuff).

Third, our department came out much better than any of us had any right to expect. We made it into Q4, apparently meaning we need to "transform/re-invent" ourselves. Q5 programs, if one cobbles the two reports together and does a bit of Ouija boarding, should be eliminated, cut or deactivated. What I saw of our dept reports, we should have been at the bottom of the Q5 list - cut immediately. Instead, we got Q4. Okay. Dean explained that to me yesterday - every college/university in the region has one of us. (Sorry, but I cannot identify the department itself due to that damned gag order... even referencing the gag order violates the instructions to shut the hell up). Let's call it... Arts & Sciences Basic (hereafter ASB). So everybody who claims to be a college/university has a ASB department/program. So we couldn't be in Q5, no matter how bad we are. And let me assure you, give what the TF had to judge us on, we are really bad.

Where do we - they - go from here? Who knows. The deans have the opportunity to rebut, and then the whole shebang goes off to the president's prioritization group, who will decided what, if any, actions are to be taken.

As far as ASB goes, the people who are left standing are the dinosaurs. Completely out of touch with the field/discipline, in their 70s, they are privileged white men, secure in their privilege and tenure. The one who will be the most active in this process has not done any work in the field - research, writing or even keeping up with the scholarly literature of his own field - for (by his own account) 4 decades. He doesn't know how to turn on a computer, much less do a google search. Online resources and/or research is as remote and important to him as Serengeti insect life.  He's going to be the one that frames and re-invents the ASB department. He's a lousy teacher too. He got a teaching award from Sears (!) in 1991, and regards that as proof that he's an outstanding teacher. Eep.

It's both liberating and depressing to know that I'm walking out the door and leaving the students to this mess. It's hard to disengage, after 16 years of caring deeply, trying to make a difference.

Public: Retiring!

Told the dean last week that this  is my last term at RNU. Felt great. Zie was surprised - majorly - and hir jaw dropped. And then, I got to watch as the dinosaurs scramble, trying to figure out what it meant for them.

Dino1 proved the most astonishing. I have to quit giving him this power to prompt a response. He wants so badly to emerge as the hero of the piece. And he might well, despite his unfitness for the role. This is the man who (proudly) told me he hadn't done anything in the profession - research, service, writing - for 40 years. His version of scholarship is to read the NYT Review of Books, and to invent new classes based on non-scholarly works. He jumped right in, offering to teach 7 classes. Because he couldn't count. Two of these, that one, or just go ahead and add that one too, then this one here and of course we need to do that and that. "Err, are you sure? That's seven classes." "What? What? No, that's only five! I don't mind doing an extra prep!" Dean: "I've got a, b, c, d, e, f and g. That's seven." "Oh? No, two a, two b, c, d and e. That's not 7 is it? It is?" "It is." "oh." Oh indeed. Then I really pissed him off, as he was primping and puffing about his 'best student in 30 years' being available for adjunct. I choked, added that I was going to advise "above all, don't hire K as adjunct!" Dino was very indignant. Very. I was more articulate, and provided evidence of K unsuitability. Dino will prevail, as K is an acolyte. D is so out of touch with the reality of the field, that he doesn't see K as anything other than a replicate of himself. Which, IMHO, is precisely why K shouldn't come in as adjunct!

Oh. Well. Not my problem.

Knee doing well. Get the stitches out Tuesday, and hopefully cleared to drive. Which will promptly not happen, as the info sheet says PT, which starts Wednesday, will require pain killers. O. Joy. However, it'll be a process and one I need to get on, get moving, get completely mobile!

Some gratifying elements of the past week: good classes, some students returning from my best class ever, and the comments I got from my campus-friend-wide email announcing my retirement. Very nice, very affirming, very needed.

Buh-Bye 2014! And Bring on the New!!

Definitely retiring at end of spring term. Summer is full of travel plans,and then I'll come back here, pack up and move to the northwest. Once the house is empty, realtor-friend will get the piddly work done and sell it. I shall rent up there until I can decide what's next. If I love the place, I'll stay. If not, I'll move south or out or something. But I won't be back in Red Neck State, and that is what is important.

I'm really excited about all this. And ready to tell the Powers That Be - when the time is right. Hopefully right after they tell me I have to teach x, y and z next fall, and that they're eliminating the program around us. The prioritization process, which they'd hyped to all as completely transparent - isn't. And they are causing a lot of unnecessary fear and angst around campus. Enough so that it prompted my decision to retire early just to get the hell away from them.

That all means that this is going to be my last term at Red Neck U. That has so many implications attached to it that, for me, it's this New Life that is opening up. And it's starting off well.

Monday is my knee replacement surgery! So tired of the pain and associated sedentariness, that the promised pain and rehabilitation seems like a lovely future. The surgeon said 3-4 days in the hospital and then a couple in rehab before I can go home. The Insurance twits say 2 days for everything. I am always astonished that we tolerate the extortion of commercial insurance. Our carrier is, like many, known as Auto-No. Their first response to everything is NO. NO you can't have that doctor. NO you can't have that med. NO you don't need the care the doctor thinks you do. Yes, you can appeal, but that initial NO is just damned irritating. And totally unnecessary. No wonder more and more doctors are opting out of the insurance racket: they get the hassle of filing and tracking and fighting just as we do. Only as patients, we're the bottom of the food chain.

So the new year for me is one of hope and promise - the biggest hope being that the bad mojo of 2014 is all behind me. Here's hoping your New Year is fun, exciting, relaxing, productive and everything you want it to be!

Updates

1) Meds tweak doing great things. Got to a great doc - one who actually listens! And he gave me great news on the hormones, based on (gasp) recent research rather than old wives' tales. It pays to see a specialist.

2) Ditto. Dr on anti-depressants gave me one of those bump pills that you take with the anti-dep. And it works. So that's much better.

3) The Knee. Finally got self to a different doc - one who'd listen to me (!!) and she looked at the X-ray and said 'well, there's the problem! That's bone-on-bone arthritis! No torn meniscus; there's no meniscus left. That's the source of your pain.' Well, gee. Great. It's odd how much a relief a diagnosis can be, even if you don't want the ailment itself. But from diagnosis to the decision to replace the knee (nothing short of that is going to 'cure' the condition) was not hard and surgery is tentatively scheduled for early January. Meanwhile, I have bone on bone pain. The cortisone shot did zip (dammit), but the surgeon doesn't want to do the surgery until at least shot + 4 weeks. So now I'm trying to get something for the pain. Luckily, it's not too long and there's nothing that requires me to be on my feet or use the knee extensively between now and then.

4) The big news is that retirement plans are changing mightily. Hugely. As in... I'm most likely going to retire at the end of the spring term. I'm so fed up with my uni, and the current idiocy that sticking it out for a couple more years is just ridiculous. And unnecessary. Another change is location: not going to France. Thinking about Olympic Peninsula; which is a huge change but I am so excited about it it's funny. Some days I just want to leave now and others I'll be okay to go next week. August seems just impossibly far away. At the moment, the plan is to pack in August: three stacks: to be unpacked there,  to go into storage there and to donate/sell here. Hopefully the last will be the big pile. Then I'll call in the movers, they'll load appropriately and I'll take off with the animals and drive up. Where I will have a place to move into (rental). I'll commit to about a year to see if I like the place, if I can stand the weather (the Olympic rain shadow promises less rain and gray than Seattle, which I knew I'd never be able to stand) and that there's enough life there to make me happy. If yes, then I can spend next spring looking for a permanent residence there. If no, I'll try something/someplace else.

That is me being semi-rational. There are other times when I find a house up there and want to buy now, just take the leap. My friends here keep talking me out of such impulses. Sometimes I even thank them.

Why the change? Well, the biggest bit is the mess of a prioritization study being done on campus. It started last spring, when campus morale was already very bad. Over the past 7 months, the PTB have misled the entire process in so many ways. Buy-in was good; everybody seemed to understand that we as a university needed to take a hard look, figure out what's important, what we're doing well, all the things that 'prioritization' would seem to entail. But from the first, there's been very little in the way of solid information or leadership. The committees formed, then discovered that it would require lots of summer work. Well, for the people on staff who have 12 month employment, that was no big deal, but for faculty on 9 month contracts (most of us, say 95%) that meant lots of extra, unpaid work. They did it, dedicated to the goals and the university. But then they found out - only once into it - just how much work it was going to be. Everybody I've talked to said it was like taking on an additional part time job.

Once they'd one their work, they rolled out what the various departments had to do. We're a small program - 4 faculty, a dozen majors - we had 5 different reports to do: program, department, major, minor and shared minor. The reports required data that we didn't have, and that data was to come from various admin units. Except it didn't. It did come very late, and then was wrong, and then we were told to just use it. My dinosaurs wrote the department reports (me being not allowed anywhere near it), smug in the belief that nothing they did would really matter. So they made it up, used decades old data (based on memory and wishful thinking), and turned it in. And it's been like sending things into a black hole.

There's been no feedback, as those same over-whelmed committee 'champions' then had to read all those reports.  And then decide, based on something else, where in the 5 level matrix of importance, the program/dept/major/minor/shared minor lands.

All that was to have been done by now. The reports were promised to the Deans the first week of January. And then, shaZAAM!! The thing could be implemented in January and we'd be all reconfigured and shiny and new by end of spring term.

You can imagine, I'm sure, the mess that has ensued. Fear. Loathing. Distrust. Disgust. Fear everywhere, as we're all awaiting the ax. The Deans aren't sure whether or not they'll have a chance to rebut the findings, or where they fit in this process. And they have 100 times more voice than faculty. The distrust is palatable. There are those - my dinosaurs - who are confident that nothing will change. They are in a small minority. Most are afraid. Does not make for pleasant work environment.

One prof today told me that we're on the Titanic and his feet are wet. The lifeboats are in the water and loading. And, he's sure, the uni Prez is playing the part of Nero, playing while Rome burns. Or maybe he's the captain of that cruise ship that went aground off Italy: too busy packing his own bags to abandon ship to take notice of his passengers and crew. We could use Captn Smith....  Knowing enough to avoid the mess? Well, that might be too much to ask.