I don’t mean to set one particular breakout session over or apart from the others, but since one of them would benefit from a bit of prior reading (about 15 pages of non-technical philosophy), I thought it would be important to give a little warning. Reading is not required to attend, but we recommend reading  at least one essay.

This Thursday (12:45 in 1115), Dave Richardson and I will be hosting a Great-Books style seminar. We have no special presentation planned: we would simply like to host a discussion amongst a community of HWC educators about knowledge, belief, and our relationships to them, by discussing two short essays that deal with the topic.

The essays are William James’s “The Will to Believe,” and Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense.” Copies will be available in the Humanities office (1014) on Wednesday, but you can get an early start here and there.  We will also have copies at the seminar itself. I’ve prepared a study guide for those interested; you may e-mail me at bswanson1@ccc.edu for a copy. It includes some pertinent historical background.

The big talk around Reinvention is increasing retention and completion rates. Though there is controversy about the statistics, there seems to be agreement on one thing: it could be much better. And, as educators, we’re concerned not only with the numbers of completion, but the quality of the education itself. Lots of money has been spent, and I’m overjoyed to know that we’re confirmed to get 20 full-time faculty during the Fall and Spring semesters. But what else should we examine?

Perhaps we are overlooking the importance of community. For those of us who’ve been here for a few years, we’re liable to overlook this problem, because we feel and experience the HWC community.  But our target students here aren’t the ones who’ve been around for three or four years, of course: it’s the students who are in their first or second semester. We might be liable to forget that the social glue that keeps us here doesn’t even exist for our new students.

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On Saturday morning, many of us received the e-mail, and subsequently saw the news here, that grades were due for submission on May 18. However, I have learned that some faculty never received the e-mail. As far as I can tell, full-time faculty received the e-mail and part-time faculty did not. I only discovered this because my part-time office mate was complaining today about how we still didn’t know when the grade submission due date is. Obviously, this caught me by surprise.

Not everyone reads this blog on a regular basis. It may not be a bad idea to send an e-mail to the part-time faculty in your departments in case they haven’t received the news.

Many of us already knew this, but until this week, many of us have not had opportunity to feel it, and to deal with the repercussions: the new catalog cannot be trusted regarding degree requirements. I am unsure what we as professors can do about this during this week other than to compile a list of errata as we see them. It seems difficult to do this systematically, but at least we can keep track of what we encounter.

I am in registration at this moment, and I was helping a student choose classes for her AAS in Computer Information Systems. We were looking for an English 101 class for her, but I noticed that there was no mention of an English requirement for this particular Associates degree. I advised her accordingly, but also mentioned to her that I have a suspicion she might need the English class anyway. Sure enough, one of the advisers had been listening to our conversation. After the student left, the adviser said she was likewise suspicious of the lack of English requirements. She quickly investigated the catalog alongside some of her über-advising material. Sure enough, we found the catalog to be in error.

Sure, district has called for corrections.  But we needed these corrections last week, not in two months. I’m not sure where to turn for accurate information. The catalog is massive. How reliable is it? I have no method of verifying what is correct and what is not. Checking with the advisers every step of the way seems exceptionally burdensome, and demonstrates another reason why I am not qualified for this type of advising. Am I supposed to launch a miniature investigation every time I need to consult the catalog for degree requirements outside the AA? As far as I can see, the best advice at this point is to always be suspicious of this catalog.

PS: As a side note, if you are a student who plans to come in to register, or if you know a student who does, GET DOWN HERE! There is no line in 404, and the classes are wide open. Professors are sitting around with nothing to do except read Harold Lounge, discuss the various actions of District, and laugh at Districtisnotthebossofme’s hilarious videos. In three weeks, the lines will be enormous and frustrating, the classes will all be filled, and everyone you deal with will be irritable.

Last year, on the Friday of finals week, I was in my office frantically grading papers.  A colleague saw me and told me about the Harold Washington Employee Christmas Party currently being held in room 102,  and suggested I should go down there, get some food, and mingle for a bit. It sounded like a good break, so I grabbed another colleague and we headed downstairs.

When we got to room 102, a security guard was at the door and stopped us. “ID’s, please,” he said. We are in our early thirties and frequently get mistaken for students, which is no big deal. We pulled out our IDs and showed it to the guard, hungrily eying all the food inside and all of our fellow HWC employees enjoying themselves.

“I’m sorry,” the guard said, “Full-time employees only.”

Last year at this time, I was an adjunct, and so was my friend that I brought down. We thought that, despite being adjunct professors, that we were still a part of the HWC family. I guess we were wrong. My friend, because he is more patient and forgiving than I, took it lightly.  But I felt angry and dejected.

Now, I am a full-timer, so I will be able to attend. When we received the e-mail yesterday about the Holiday Party, I realized I have been waiting for this moment all year. I responded immediately, “Will part-time faculty be able to attend? Last year, we were turned away at the door.” I was thinking of our Chancellor’s statement, in response to a question regarding our inclusion (or lack thereof) of adjuncts during DWFDW, that “Faculty are faculty are faculty.”

Most of us still don’t believe that adjuncts are treated the same as full-time, but at least for this year’s Holiday party, part-timers will be able to attend. I received the e-mail response this morning: “Absolutely, [adjuncts will be able to attend.]“

Now, if only the party weren’t being held a full week into the faculty’s winter break, we might have attended this year.

Just a moment ago, I logged in to myfaculty.ccc.edu to checkup on some rosters, and I found a button that I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe I’m blind and it’s always been there, but I recall that usually, there were three buttons under the “Management” heading:

1. View My Class Schedule

2. View My Weekly Schedule

3. Access Class Roster

But this time, I noticed a fourth:

4. Record Grades

When I clicked on the button, I am simply given a page that states “No matching values were found.” But there is still one more week in the summer semester. Perhaps it will have more functionality next week? Summer instructors, check it out!