Confessions of a Community College Dean
In which a veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990s moves into academic administration and finds himself a married suburban father of two. Foucault, plus lawn care.
In which a veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990s moves into academic administration and finds himself a married suburban father of two. Foucault, plus lawn care.
June 23, 2010 - 9:39pm
Last week I heard an interview with Seth Godin in which he mentioned the need for employees to make themselves indispensable.
In the context of academic administration, I have to disagree. In fact, in many ways, making yourself dispensable means you’re doing your job well.
Comments
June 22, 2010 - 9:59pm
My town is dealing with the same economic pressures as most -- declining state aid, declining tax revenues -- so it’s facing some unpleasant budgetary choices. (The culprit behind declining state aid is mostly Medicaid. Until we get a handle on that, we’re in trouble. But that’s another post.)
June 22, 2010 - 4:28am
In a brief conversation with a professor on campus recently, I was reminded of a basic assumption gap. I made a reference to pass rates -- the percentage of students who achieve passing grades in any given semester -- and the efforts we’re making there. My assumption was that pass rates are scandalously low, and that we need to improve them. He concurred that there was a problem with pass rates, but defined the problem differently. To him, the issue was that our pass rates are much too high.
June 20, 2010 - 9:33pm
Last week Congress held some hearings on accreditation requirements and the definition of the credit hour. In reaction to the increasing percentage of federal financial aid that’s going to students at for-profits, and the somewhat generous interpretations some for-profits have had of the ‘credit hour,’ Democrats decided to mount a spirited defense of the seat-time based credit hour.
June 17, 2010 - 9:50pm
I need the wisdom of my wise and worldly readers on this one.
It falls somewhere between a political question and an etiquette question.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that your campus has identified a few key goals, and that there’s pretty good campuswide agreement on those goals. Let’s say that those key goals have been given a consistently high profile. And let’s say that several different projects have run over the past couple of years in pursuit of those goals.
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