Depending where you're sitting, you'll either be pleased or appalled to hear that I have agreed to continue as Chair of the First Year at Lang for another year. I know, I know, six years is plenty, I'm burned out, it needs a fresh pair of eyes, and besides, I need to learn to say no! But wait: it was my idea and I'm doing it on my terms. I'll only be covering the fun parts: working with the peer advisers and the alumnae/i teaching Reading NYC courses. The dreary work with departments on First Year Seminars will be taken on by the Associate Dean.
Why'd I do it? Several reasons. For one, I really do enjoy those parts of the program, a lot. For another, I'm not confident that a replacement - let alone a placeholder - Chair would bring to them the care they deserve. (In particular, Reading NYC is my baby, and I want to make sure it survives.) This connects to the sense of desperation I've been picking up from the Dean's Office: they've been unable to move on a new Chair since they feel we need another year to absorb the implications of the just-completed Strategic Plan to know what the first year program will be the first year of. I get that.
And don't worry, I'm not doing this for free. I get my course exemption, which means that I can hire someone to take over one of my classes. And as it happens, just days before making my offer to the Dean's Office I realized that someone who could do a socko job of teaching Spring 2014's "Cultures of the Religious Right" would be in the City just then and in need of support...
Why'd I do it? Several reasons. For one, I really do enjoy those parts of the program, a lot. For another, I'm not confident that a replacement - let alone a placeholder - Chair would bring to them the care they deserve. (In particular, Reading NYC is my baby, and I want to make sure it survives.) This connects to the sense of desperation I've been picking up from the Dean's Office: they've been unable to move on a new Chair since they feel we need another year to absorb the implications of the just-completed Strategic Plan to know what the first year program will be the first year of. I get that.
And don't worry, I'm not doing this for free. I get my course exemption, which means that I can hire someone to take over one of my classes. And as it happens, just days before making my offer to the Dean's Office I realized that someone who could do a socko job of teaching Spring 2014's "Cultures of the Religious Right" would be in the City just then and in need of support...
