Making some decisions

* Sometimes it's a relief to say to yourself, "I don't have a dog in this hunt"and just not need to offer input unless specifically asked. We're discussing restructuring one of the gen ed classes, and it is a class I teach, but I don't have extremely strong feelings one way or another about it. I'll just modify the material I cover (cutting some stuff out, expanding other stuff) depending on what recommendation comes down.

(There is a push here - probably on all campuses - to make all sections of a multi-section class "exactly equal." (heh. Yes, they do store the professors' cutie marks in a big vault for the duration of the class....). You can't really DO that, because everyone is different and everyone teaches differently and frankly I am FINE with that fact because the way I, specifically, teach may be great for some students and awful for others, whereas my colleague Prof. Starswirl might be just what the students who don't learn well from me need. But anyway. The whole equalization process is somewhat tedious and I have more than once argued that if they want it EXACTLY equal, they pay one of us the "combat pay" that teaching a big, big section triggers, and they have one or two mass-sections of the class, and too bad so sad if they don't work with your schedule....)

But anyway. I don't have a strong opinion other than that I am not convinced I agree with the "students are oh so very much worse now than they were even five years ago" - I have some pretty good ones. There are always people who are apathetic or clueless, but the good students are as good as they've ever been. So whatever.

(I still maintain I wish I could get them to leave their bobdarned cell phones IN THEIR BACKPACKS for class. I think we'd have fewer clueless-seeming ones if they weren't constantly trying to divide their attention up.)

* The prairie conference I have (usually) attended in the past is in my parents' town this summer. So, free lodging (and board) if I decide to go. But: it falls in the next-to-last week of summer session. I thought about it, consulted my chair - because we still have the weird oogy "you're not supposed to leave the state if you're being paid" thing in place.  Even if you make arrangements for class to be covered, which I will. I CAN take a week of "personal days," which feels like tempting fate, but whatever. But it's too good an opportunity to pass up, ESPECIALLY if there is even the remotest chance I may have to go back on the job market some day.

So I bought train tickets today. I'll have to also move a check up at my doctor's but that should be fairly simple.

But what pushed me to do it is this: we have been told that if we don't get at least 10 in our summer classes, and we still agree to teach, we are paid at the adjunct rate, which is about half the professor rate. So I figure....it's not like I'm being paid that much for the week I will be gone. (And anyway: I am arranging make-up stuff, and may even pay a colleague to cover one of my sections for me)

I have something I can present and I can also meet with my former advisor over a paper we are working on together.