Hiatus until 2009

This will be the last post of 2008. Please check back in January for more.

I was getting ready to post today, and I just realized that I had never posted the success I had finally getting the article accepted that was being held up by the bad reviewer (3 revise and resubmits). I got the acceptance letter right before NCA. Even in the final review, the reviewer recommended against acceptance and had "philosophical problems" with the manuscript, but the editor accepted it anyway. In the meantime, I just did the page proofs for the 11-month review article, which will come out next month. It builds on the first article, but oh well. It's just great to have them both out there.

I've been able to get several things done this week that I just didn't have time for at the end of the semester, and that's a really good feeling. I had been sitting on a manuscript, waiting to submit it to a journal until after the article with the 3 revise and resubmits got accepted. So I took the feedback from NCA where I presented it and sent it off to a journal this week. Then, I revised a draft of the NSF grant that I'm working on. I was supposed to have that to the person at my university that is helping me a couple of weeks ago, but I just couldn't do it until now. I'm still hoping to have it submitted in mid-January.

Now, I'm working a little bit on teaching stuff. I have another new prep in the Spring, and I'd like to have the syllabus and maybe the first day of class done before I leave on "family tour." I'm also working on a paper that I was planning to submit this month, but it will have to wait at least till early January. I had almost run all of the data when I noticed that not all of the data was in my SPSS file. I had surveyed people at several organizations, each of which was stored as a separate Excel file. When I combined Excel files, two of my copy-and-pastes were not complete. So I'm rerunning the statistics. I don't think there are enough missing cases to really change my conclusions, but it's still pretty frustrating. And I need to get reports to those organizations that participated, outlining the overall results and any particulars about their organization. Lots to do in the next few days.

In case no one has said it to you recently, have a happy holiday and a great finish to 2008!

Finally Finished

So I turned in final grades yesterday, meaning that I'm essentially done with the semester. My department wants a written assessment report of what students learned, but other than that, I'm done.

It's been an interesting finish to the year. Am I over committed? I've been blaming my busy-ness on having students come by for advising, which hasn't happened much until this year. But that has slowed to a trickle since Spring registration. And reading through proposals took a decent amount of time, but I feel more behind that I could possibly blame on that. All I know is that it's been weeks since I felt like I had a week where I got everything done that I wanted to. That may be normal for some, but I am typically able to plan out how much I can get done and actually do it. I had planned on having four things under review by the end of this week. I will have one, and two others are very close. The problem, of course, is that January brings challenges of its own (new course prep, getting ready for NCA submissions, etc.). I really wanted to have these things off the plate.

grading and grading, but the piles never seem to get smaller

Buried alive under piles of grading.

Students Over for Dinner

I had one of my classes over for dinner last night, and it was absolutely fabulous. I think they enjoyed it, and I had a blast.

I'm on several thesis committees, and three of those students have decided to do proposals this week. Two down, one to go. And one final to go. After today, I'll be able to breathe a little. Just a little, though. I've given up hope that papers will ever evolve to the point where they grade themselves.

Results of Budget Meeting and the Start of Finals

So the big news from the budget meeting last week is that my teaching will indeed be increased from 3-2 to 3-3. However, it's tough to be disappointed with that since the savings will fund promotions and merit increases (including mine) that otherwise wouldn't be funded. ("Oh, congratulations on getting associate prof. with tenure, but unfortunately we don't have money to pay you any more than a 1st year asst. prof.") Several of our lecturers are in jeopardy as well as one of our adminstrative assistants, and those jobs are a pretty big deal to our division. But I think after the dust settles in the Fall, 2009, things should be quieter, more certain. Of course, things would be much more certain if the economy improves. However, I asked point-blank if things like the reduced teaching load would be given back when the economy does turn upward, and the reality is that the faculty will have to fight for it all over again.



I gave my first of two finals today. Making slow progress on grading, but I can see it being done by the end of the week without too much difficulty. I graded final papers in one of my classes, and I definitely need to spend more time on how to write a research paper. These are seniors who have all taken research methods, but I guess I can't rely as much on that class as I thought. Some papers were good, but some missed the mark.



I'm scaling back my expectations for the next couple of weeks. I originally thought I'd have three or four things under review by Jan. 1, but that just isn't going to happen. Bummer. The problem is that it means I'll still be working on stuff in the spring, which will delay some new stuff that I wanted to have written up and in to NCA. I need to clone myself. Anyone familiar with that process?

Lots of Little Things

Done with classes. I've just got two finals to give. Whoopee!

The stacks of grading have invaded my office and are beginning to assert their presence. I may need an emergency escape plan.

I've been asked to be the interim graduate director next year while the person that is our graduate director is overseas. Yikes! Seems like a really cool thing that I'd be interested in doing, but I worry that it's going to take me away from my research too much. But it comes with a course release, and it seems like it would show my university and any others that I'm interested in in the future that I can work with graduate students. But haven't I shown that in other ways?

Speaking of course releases, the deans and administrations just approved a reduction in teaching load from 3-3 to 3-2 this year, but now I've heard that it's likely they will take that away. Big bummer. I'm not sure what we're going to learn at this budget meeting today. I'm almost certainly going to be there, but I'm hoping that it's not just a vent session.

Nearly There

I will be finished with all classes a week from today. That's when my last final is. Quite a bit to do between now and then. I'm also on a number of thesis committees, and they're all trying to get proposals done before the break, so I've got quite a bit of that as well. I feel like I'm on a precipice, where I could have a great last couple of weeks or a disasterous time in terms of getting stuff done. Hopefully, I'll fall the right way. It's a little scary to look too far forward--February is going to be tough. Really tough. When did I sign up for this type of stress?

Budget Cuts

A few weeks ago, our university president announced that there would be some financial restraint used in the upcoming budgets and asked departments to start thinking about cutting back. My outgoing department chair followed that announcement with a number of new departmental policies that would save a little bit. I just received a notice of a faculty meeting Friday where we will discuss more practical budget matters. Apparently the dean has asked departments to prioritize their programs and budgetary needs so that "important things" don't get cut. Obviously, that implies that there are unimportant things that we are doing, and I'm interested to know what those are. I think that my job has, in some ways, been shielded from the economic situation in the country, and it's interesting to think about it affects me more and more. There are a lot of things that I have counted on that I wonder about. The assistant dean in charge of research and the internal grants that I apply for has said he doesn't anticipate cuts in his area because "this is so integral to who we are as a university." I wonder about that assurance. I am due for a merit increase in August. I'm not sure if they can change a policy like that without the approval of the faculty senate, but it's definitely something to think about. There is talk about finding ways to reduce our dependence on adjuncts and lecturers, and I wonder if they will increase our teaching load (a nightmare that haunts me). I'll know more in a week, I guess. I just hope this meeting isn't an excuse to vent about the situation.