Last week, Bill cordially invited us to attend Faculty Senate.
At that meeting, I heard about some things which I hadn’t even heard mentioned and which seemed interesting/important enough to blog about.
2 years of meetings culminated in 3 requested action items for Faculty Senate recommeneded by the AIC (Academic Infrastructure Committee).
After hearing the presentation to the senate, pondering these action items, and listening to other commentary I have the following thoughts…
– It seems to me that a subset of the Faculty seems technologically dispossesed. It appears they feel they cannot get what they want the way they want it (isn’t that what we all want…) and so recommended some action items to the FS (Faculty Senate) to get their aims accomplished in a more desirable fashion.
– Some of the action items seems mildly to wildly inappropriate. Though submitted under a seemingly desirable guise, details of the aforementioned Action Items seem to empower faculty to boldly go where no faculty have gone before. Is this wise? You decide.
Humans are expert critics. We are AMAZING at finding faults with other people and being able to seemingly solve everyone ELSE’s problems. Ah but how rarely we turn the microscope around…
I’m a nerd. I’m not afraid to say it. I’m good with computers. I can make them sing and dance. It’s what I’m good at. So I do it and I leave things like … teaching and accounting and art and (on and on…) to people who are good at those things.
As a member of UCS it seems that some of the proposed AIC action items really step on our toes, get in our space and could easily be viewed as controlling. But there is no reason to get emotional or weird about these sorts of things. Perhaps it’s for the best. Perhaps if the staff of WOU don’t think college students are really prepared for the working world and should be taught different things we could make a committee to review any and all curriculum at WOU. Perhaps that’s for the best.
– Student Technology Fee Committee can defend itself. I’m displeased with the apparent intent displayed by the AIC towards it, but as the Student Technology Fee totally lacks any reference to Faculty whatsoever, it doesn’t seem to be their sphere of influence either. But we’ll let them fight their own good fight.
– Free wireless rocks. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. I’m all for it, but somebody gotta pay for it. I ain’t gonna but am totally committed to creative funding sources. A few thousand car washes should do it.
On a serious note, and to keep from becoming cynical, I think it’s best said that AIC has some real and possible uses. But in it’s present form it’s broken. It’s a hindrance to letting us serve the way we intend to. Can we make everyone happy everytime. No. But we know that AND we keep trying.
Have a problem? Call the helpdesk. They’re nice. They don’t bite. They are always there. We want to help. But so easily we can be made to look like the bad guy.
Finally, a few thoughts on Unity. I think it a true statement that any kingdom divided cannot stand. WOU has been through some hard times. If we don’t come together and work as a team, I think those times may be multiplied or drawn out longer than we all desire. Maybe it’s not one happy family, maybe it’s not a perfect team. But cynicism, criticism and fault finding never made any team great. Ever.
So let’s focus on the point – the students. Let’s do the things we are good at and make this University Great again.
Those are my thoughts…