Dean Dad

From Confessions of a Community College Dean, in which a veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990’s moves into academic administration and finds himself a married suburban father of two. Foucault, plus lawn care.

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Most Recent Articles

November 11, 2012
Ask the Administrator: The Case of the Frustrated IT Manager
A long-suffering correspondent writes: "I'm an IT manager at a community college. [Several] years ago, my college created a CIO (Chief Information Officer) position and united our technology departments under the new CIO.  It was a disaster.  The CIO was a longtime administrator at the college who, despite being an experienced educational administrator, wasn't able to be an effective CIO (poor communication and project management).  The other administrators were unhappy with the performance of IT under the CIO, but they mostly held their tongues until he retired.  Once he left, they let their displeasure be known and started clamoring for the technology departments to be split back up so they can have more control."
November 8, 2012
Friday Fragments
Congratulations to the long-suffering California public higher education system, which received a stay of execution from the voters.  Proposition 30 raises enough revenue to prevent the next round of cuts, and to actually plan something.  Even better, the voters sent enough Democrats to the legislature to achieve the supermajority status that California quixotically mandates for any tax increases.  (Tax decreases don’t have the same requirement.)
November 7, 2012
Quiet Commuting?
I love this story, and not only because it’s illustrated with a picture of my old dorm. It’s about a minor trend of some residential colleges designating certain dorms as “quiet housing.”  The appeal should be obvious to anyone who remembers trying to sleep while someone in the room next door insisted on blasting the English Beat.  If memory serves.
November 7, 2012
Quiet Commuting?
I love this story, and not only because it’s illustrated with a picture of my old dorm. It’s about a minor trend of some residential colleges designating certain dorms as “quiet housing.”  The appeal should be obvious to anyone who remembers trying to sleep while someone in the room next door insisted on blasting the English Beat.  If memory serves.
November 6, 2012
This Is Not About the Election
This is not about the election,  Instead, it’s about next week’s Big Announcement.
November 5, 2012
Administration as Academic Alternative
I had to smile at this piece in Inside Higher Ed.  It recommended a more open-minded attitude towards administrative careers as options for academics who had trouble finding the tenure-track position of their dreams.
November 4, 2012
Fingers Crossed
Coming up on the election, I’ve got my fingers crossed.  On the upside, at least the campaigns will be over. That little girl who cried about “Bronco Bamma” spoke a basic truth: we’re all tired of the ads.  I can only imagine how bad it must be for people living in swing states. My state has some drama of its own, but it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion at the presidential level, so that has helped contain the madness.  The folks in Ohio must be thoroughly sick of it all by now.
November 1, 2012
Whiskey, Cigarettes, and Jane Austen
According to a task force convened by Governor Scott of Florida, Jane Austen falls into the same category as whiskey and cigarettes. I’ll admit, I hadn’t thought of that.
October 31, 2012
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps
The Girl dressed as a Tootsie Roll, and The Boy as a Jawa from Star Wars. They were endearing, but not scary.  I had front door duty.
October 30, 2012
Rogue Data
Like most colleges, mine was born before IT became a fact of life. IT had to be grafted onto a pre-existing culture, or, more accurately, set of micro-cultures. Different departments and support programs have their own ways of doing things; some have welcomed technology, some have grudgingly adapted, and some have shoved it over in a corner, hoping it would eventually go away.

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