Friday, November 02, 2007

Lessons learned.... about faculty and how they are like students...

So, I'm division chair this semester. Since Wise Woman is on sabbatical this semester, I'm also the "senior" philosophy person, i.e. the person on whom all the administrivia is dumped without any release time or other compensation.

My major projects this semester have involved dealing with BICC and coordinating schedules for the division, including assigning rooms. I also sit on two committees....These observations are generalized from both of these projects... and all of them, even the contradictory ones, can easily apply to the same person.

My experience so far this semester is akin to the experience writing students have in peer review exercises... I'd never guess that people would be like that!

My general conclusion is that faculty members and students aren't all that different....
  • Just like our students, faculty members can be sweet and wonderful. They can be creative and kind to one another.
  • Just like our students, faculty members have complicated lives that get in the way of fulfilling their obligations.
  • Just like our students, faculty members can be terrible about following directions --- even the easiest directions.
  • Just like our students, faculty members can both ignore deadlines placed on them and expect others to meet the deadlines they construct.
  • Just like our students, faculty members sometimes make-up rules that help them and then assert that they ARE rules.
  • Just like our students, faculty members often fail to proofread. This can take one of two forms, either they write poorly or they fail to notice discrepancies on dates or other factual-type data in their written communication.
  • Just like our students, faculty members procrastinate.
  • Just like our students, faculty members have important insights, passions and points of view.
  • Just like our students, faculty members have a hard time admitting they make mistakes.
  • Just like our students, faculty members often fail to communicate. Oddly enough, this seems to a problem even in disciplines that are supposed to teach "communication".
Really, just like our students, faculty members are people...

who would have known....

1 comment:

julie said...

Brialliant, true, and tough to remember when one is in the heated throes (or boring throes) of a ["ahem"] committee meeting.