So we are taking what clearly already works, and breaking it in the name of being innovative. Or maybe not. It seems like all we are doing is taking a group of people who seem like they all got along and agreed, and forcing them into cage matches over minutae. Should the 3rd level course use 1/8 in. combs or 1/16 in? Do students still need to learn hand weaving? Each meeting is turning in to a bunch of hurt feelings and griping past each other.
And why are we doing this? I am not sure. Cynical Dr. A. says it's because we have too many administrators, and they need something to do and these meetings are something to do. Nice Dr. A. says we should make sure we are always doing well. But here's the thing. Most people thought we WERE doing well. But that wasn't an option in this whole revision process. And now we all look warily at each other and one of the things that made working here fun - great colleagues whom I really respected, is diminished.
So can we please just stop?
Was there ever any evidence (student complaints, focus groups, etc.) that the old curriculum was a problem? I'm guessing not, and that makes Cynical Dr. A correct.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel better, solutions in search of a problem is a popular strategy at my institution as well.
Yeah, this sounds familiar to me too. My favorite part about stuff like this is how excited the administrators get, then later, when the faculty don't "buy in", they get all upset about it.
ReplyDeleteI am cynical Dr. A. Administrators need to prove they are doing something. So they try to fix what's not broken, and engineer months of faculty man-hours in exchange for very little or no payout. At my university the VPAA is sort of a revolving door of people that come in, shake everything up, pad their resume, and then leave. One forced the faculty created an entire new useless program (along with a useless new administrator) that crashed and burned immediately upon his departure. Idiots.
ReplyDelete@Stella: Yore righting this mourning indecates that your exhausted or pist. This makes me sadd. Git well soon? xoxoxo
DeleteJeez, Bubba, where's your grammar? Please don't say, in the kitchen making cornbread.
Deletehoney child, we eat grits and biscuits in this household. what's a grammar?
DeleteThe irony of it all is that there are likely broken things that need fixin' at your school, but it is more fun to break things than to actually fix them. I wish the solution to "too many administrators" was "fewer administrators"
ReplyDeleteOn my campus, we've got so many broken things that everyone's running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to fix them. Nobody has time to fix what's not broken. I suppose I should consider myself lucky?
ReplyDelete