On being responsible

Something happened over the past few days that has me fuming. Now, maybe I have a hyper-developed sense of personal responsibility, but to me, this is just beyond comprehension.

We have this poster session for faculty coming up. The purpose of the poster session is for faculty to get to know each other and also to get to know what others are doing for research. It's not for students. So, you'd think the faculty would make their own posters. Well, I know of two who are not speaking to each other, but who are collaborating on a poster, and who dumped an unfinished presentation on a staff member--not even a grad student, which I could understand--for him to interpret what was in the presentation and make them a poster. This poor guy is the webmaster for our website, for Pete's sake--he is not an academic, doesn't know anything about their stuff, and it's really their responsibility to make the thing. I am ticked off.

Happy Second Birthday, Kosova

Congratulations on your independence!

Week Ten! Week Ten!

Ahhhhhh winter quarter is almost over. No lectures this week, I can focus on grants and a revise and resubmit that is WAAAAAY overdue.

And, at the end of this week--I am flying to The City Too Very Far Away to see Eldest Daughter for the weekend. Monday, I fly from TCTVFA to The State Too Very Far Away to see Son, and help him move to a different apartment. I get a whole week with him! He will be really really sick of me by then, I bet.... :-)

I've finished the satin stitch on the fan, and started attaching the silver pearl purl. I need to do that on a cleared-off, clean table with a dark background in case some of the pearl purl decides to bounce away after I cut the pieces off.

So, I think from now on I leave the fan in HomeCity and work on it on the weekend. I can start either the Gilt Sylke Twist grapes or the silk Floral Glove embroidery during the week. Or both! I may also draw up the big goldwork project I want to do. Actually, I have two of them. And another silk project....ooooh too many ideas!

Workwise, I think I am stuck in Groundhog Day. We keep going 'round and 'round on what happens with faculty and tenure. We can't seem to get anywhere on it. Friday's meeting was more of the same, punctuated by one colleague's whining request for the Dean to explain why he was "willing to let us go." I was so embarrassed. Ugh.

Oh, and the Olympics are on. Not that I noticed. But I did look to see if there were any athletes from Kosova (no) and if the Jamaican bobsled team was competing (also no--they didn't qualify). Oh well. I'm probably not going to see any of the Games, and that's not a big loss I think.

Hoo boy

In June we found out that our department was possibly moving out of our college and becoming a University-wide entity. We weren't entirely sure what that meant, as in our institution a professor's tenure resides at the college level, not the University level. So over the past months, we've see-sawed back and forth between possibilities. In a way, it was like the movie Groundhog Day--we seemed to always end up in the same spot: trying to figure out what happens to faculty whose department moves out of its host college.

In our last meeting with the Provost, he painted a bright picture of what he sees as our role in the changing institution. Our Dean, who was at the same meeting, was pretty insulting and obviously trying to push us to leave (back story--Fearless Leader, our department chair was the Dean's main competitor for the dean position). So we signed a letter saying we agreed that it was a good thing to move out of our college.

Still, we have not solved the tenure and promotion issues.

Last weekend Fearless Leader sent us an e-mail message asking us for three things: what college did we want our tenure to reside in; what were our preferences for teaching; and what were our career concerns as we make this transition.

I got bold. I asked for an expedited tenure and promotion process. Normally, I'd go up for tenure in September 2010, and the decision would come in February 2011 with promotion to associate professor (assuming a positive outcome) effective September 2011. What I want is to submit my last shot at the CAREER award in July 2010, then be evaluated for tenure and promotion immediately after with promotion to associate professor (assuming a positive outcome) effective September 2010.

There are a bunch of reasons why that would be good for the University and good for me. I hope I made a sufficiently strong argument to persuade the administration. We meet with the Provost on Friday, so we shall see.

Done!

Finally, I finished the cross-stitch Matryushka doll. Wow. That took way longer than I anticipated, and was often a royal pain.

I did a lot of picking out, mostly because I found some of Kitty Mama's fur stitched in with the floss.

But anyway, here it is.

I hope Youngest Daughter likes it!