You know what's fun? Getting to write an honest, albeit glowing, recommendation for a proffie/colleague/friend who is up for a teaching award and who once wrote you an honest, albeit glowing, recommendation getting you into the school where s/he is now up for a teaching award.For once, turn-about is a *good* thing. And I oddly feel no desire to chug any Glenlivit tonite... Hmmm. Think there's a correlation?
That sounds like as much fun as writing a letter for a student that made your classes tolerable for the two years that he was in attendance due to his insightfulness, his inquisitive nature, and the fact that he consistently bitched at the snowflakes to their faces about how they were wasting my time and theirs with their behaviors. Last year, I wrote a letter for one such student (OK, the only such student that has ever attended my institution) who ended up being accepted to UC Berkeley, Stanford, University of Chicago, NYU, and Penn State. My letter must have been better than I thought.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record, I prefer to alternate between Crown Royal and Patron. Not high end, but it gets me through the day. Once I get home from work, I break out the good stuff.
Hey! This is College MISERY! We can't have happiness here! We need to have some cries of pain, straightaway!!
ReplyDeletePat - unfortunately, I have high-end drunken stupor tastes
ReplyDeleteFrodo - ok, how about this? They installed a new copier and, as a grad student, I'm allowed 100 copies per term - TOTAL. So, if my average test is 8 pages long, and my 2 sections have 15
(Better?)students each, then I can printabout 1/3 of the tests for the entire term (let alone the handouts, etc.) ARGH!!!!
Is that better??
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ReplyDeleteDear Beth,
ReplyDeleteJeez, I'm surprised they don't suggest that you copy them by hand. Or do they have an old mimeograph machine around?
Ask one of your silverbacks, the more senior the better, to help you with this. The 100 copies per term, if this limit even is necessary at all, should be -aside from- what you need specifically for classroom use.
Screw SilverBack DickHead (everyone literally calls our program advisor that behind his back - and it doesn't help that he's sporting a totally silver monk's toncer for a hairstyle)!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice, but I've already found a go-around - the lab coordinators get unlimited copies (even the profs have limits - granted, it's like 10K a term, but it's still an effing limit - so there's a de facto hierarchy putting the people with the least formal education - BS or BA only - in charge of the High Holy Copier Machine of Antioch)- so I piggyback onto the lab coordinator for whichever lab I'm teaching. That literally makes sense/cents and I don't have to drop a dime and can save my 100 copies for the Xerox's of my ass that I'm planning to send to a few choice professors once I get my mortarboard and get outtie!
Geez - the school prez gets a 15% raise CUZ ENROLLMENT IS UP %15 (but is parking up?? noooooo!!!), the new dean of the newly merged college of art and sciences takes home a cool 300K yearly after taxes, and I can't have a copier budget over $5 for the term (0.05 cents/copy)?!? WTF?? We are in serious cart-pulling-horse territory here in Academia-land (in sooooo many ways...)...
Dear Beth,
ReplyDeleteIf you need 100 copies of your butt, that is one seriously screwed-up university you're at. My condolences to you!
It's a literal version of "kiss my ass." I know it is completely lacking in subtlety, but these are such ostriches I'm dealing with that I'm pretty sure they'll think I'm being "cute" and "naughty" to celebrate being hooded. *sigh* I wanna be an explosives expert and blow shit up all day...seems like a rewarding and cathartic job...
ReplyDeleteBeth,
ReplyDelete"Glenlivit" no. (meh)
"Highland Park" YES! :)
Trust me, I know these things.
On second thought I guess I should be impressed that you're drowning your sorrows in a single malt... :)
Agree with cat person but I prefer Isle of Jura.
ReplyDeleteAs to Beth, a prof I got to know as an UG, who was and has been a mentor, has asked me to write letters of support for different projects over the years. I was really thrilled when he asked me to write a letter of support for a job that the mentor had applied to.
Over a glass of single malt, I thought about how I gone from snot nose UG to Dr. Texpat and the role my mentor played in that transformation. It was the easiest and most enjoyable letters I have ever written.
LOVED writing a letter of support for my grad mentor, years later.
ReplyDeleteWe are sinking like the Titanic in all kinds of ways, and instructors at all ranks still get unlimited photocopying unless and until there are signs that privilege is being abused. After a handful of years, no signs. If you treat people like professionals, they tend to act like professionals. So sorry, Beth.
I really wish Beth, May, and any number of other exploited grads could reveal their institutions because undergrads and their advisors should know which ones to steer clear of. I have this kick-ass student who wants to go to grad school despite my admonitions that this isn't the greatest time to do so. All I want for him is that he be treated decently in whatever program he gets into.
Marcia, the trouble is that some grad programs and schools change their policies on a dime. Within 2 years, my program did the following:
ReplyDelete-shifted TA-ships to adjunct positions,
-shoved a bunch of advanced grad students out in the cold (go find adjunct jobs somewhere else, loser!) to make room for the new hot shit they admitted (and some were only luke-warm),
-promoted the tried-and-true office staff (great for them...and well-deserved) but hired boobs to replace them,
-shrunk copy budgets by implementing limits while simultaneously forcing contingent faculty/TAs to beg for the office card (and the office was often closed)
-expanded the undergrad enrollment but reduced the number of TA positions (thus making a new category: the adjunct TA...all the same work for about 1/10 the compensation! Yay!)
When I started the program, the working conditions were completely different from when I left!
Christ, Beth could be working at Safety School U just like I thought May could! It's both comforting and sad to see this happens all over the place.
Motherf***. We just haven't done that. Our TAs are unionized. They've hacked at faculty pay, staff hours, supplies, etc., but I think they've figured out that tangling with the union is more trouble than it's worth.
ReplyDeleteO, for a union.
Marcia, hate to take the wind from your sails again, but Safety School U also has (had?) a grad student union. One of the first in the US, as I recall.
ReplyDeleteAnd there was constant, beating pressure for it to be disbanded. And many faculty and admins found all sorts of ways to make us feel like having a union was hurting us. And for some of us, it did.
My program's shop steward (and later union prez) asked me to be the one to file a grievance (specifically to get us the agreed-upon-in-the-contract office space they took from us), but I was too afraid of personal retaliation. I regret not doing it now.
But future-prez could find NO ONE else in our 60+ person grad cohort to file it because admin had found all sorts of ways to limit who was eligible to join the union.
[Ok, now I feel like Debbie Downer.]
Oh, damn you, Meany. I have this utopian streak you keep crushing.
ReplyDelete'Tis my gift, m'lady.
ReplyDeleteThere used to be a wiki page out there somewhere with all sorts of rumors and personal experiences about grad schools. I can't find it anymore (and it depressed me anyway).
Anyone know it so MB can take a peek?
@meany
ReplyDelete60+ grad cohort???? is that in a single department, or in the union. because...um...we may be at the same school. my school IS a safety school for a lot of students, but also a catch-all from local CC's. but we also have true TA positions in my dept - although there are rumors of adjuncTA's (as we call them) is some of the less well-funded depts...
@go cat go
ReplyDeleteI lived in Scotland for 6 months on a study away. Fell in love with single malts. I generally keep 1 or 2 "Glens" hanging around because they are so smooth - makes the drunken stupor easier to achieve. (BTW - there is no such thing as scotch and that American shite they call whiskey is crrrrrap, as the Scots would say; I'm still on the fence about Irish whiskeys outside of a White Russian...) When I want to savor a whisky, it's usually either Scapa or (my personal fave) Laphroaig.
Although, right now I'm savoring a B&B cognac while I write the Test From Hell for my Demon-Spawn Students. May they rest in peace after next Wednesday...
Hmmm... Shit, Beth, now I have to re-think my numbers.
ReplyDeleteI think when I said 60+, I was referring to the number of grad students who were in the doctoral program (from 1st year to ABD, usually 10-12 new people with a high attrition rate) and the associated MA programs (I think 2 different 2-year programs offered GA positions, and few of them had official GA assignments - most were adjuncTAs!), but only those with current/active Grad Assistantships were eligible for the union. Usually about 20-30 in toto, 40 tops (before budget cuts and course-re-arrangements). At one time or another, all 60+ were probably in the union at some point, so theoretically any of could file the grievance (of course, someone with an active GA position would be taken more seriously).
When I parted ways with the school, the union was disintegrating in certain corners of the school (needless to say, my sisters and brothers in English were well-represented).
(Maybe former future-prez will pop in and say more...probably not.)