Wednesday, May 03, 2006

The good and bad of being department chair

Today was a day of contrasts. On one hand, I got to enjoy one of my favorite parts of being department chair - meeting with (in the context of evaluating) our adjunct faculty. These instructors are some of the most innovative, motivated people on campus, and it's a pleasure to talk with them and share teaching strategies. I see how much they're putting into their courses, so I do my best to give them as much constructive feedback as I can. It takes time, but it's very rewarding.

On the other hand, I've got a mountain of grading a mile high (OK, more like a foot or two), but instead of grading I got to file reports, fill out paperwork, work on scheduling, and deal with the latest interdepartmental politics. I figure I spent at least five hours on that kind of stuff today, and I've got more that needs to be done. The people who are getting hurt the most by this are my students - I'm weeks behind in getting papers back to them.

So, I'm tired and frustrated right now, and I'm going to get back to work. As a side note, thanks to all the work this week I haven't had time to write any posts, and that'll probably be the case for the rest of the week [everything you've been reading was written either over the weekend or before].
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