Saturday, August 13, 2011

The CAFÉ will not be a café. (Are we clear?)

My first clue that there was a misunderstanding: critics kept asking about the waitresses! 
    A quick point re the CAFÉ controversy:
     As you know, the new faculty center will have its "opening" next Tuesday. It is called the CAFÉ.
     I do hope that everyone realizes that the name CAFÉ is an acronym, like NASA and CREEP.* It stands for "Center for the Advancement of Faculty Éxcellence" (the accent is optional).
     It is NOT "a small restaurant selling light meals and drinks."
     The only decent description I have of the center (that has come to be called the CAFÉ) appeared in notes that my colleague took during an academic senate meeting in January:
IVC Faculty Teaching/Excellence Center – [Academic Senate President] Lisa [Davis Allen] had an idea and has full support from [VPI] Craig [Justice]. The concept is a space, a home, for faculty to gather, to be trained, with cabinets [to] house text books, journals, a place for colleagues to talk, a place to explore and test new software and technology, a place to do grant writing, – all things that relate to excellence in in teaching – a place to house people, technology , and support all in one place. We would be able to go into a space/place and meet with peers, discuss teaching, problems, strategies. It would be wide open. A morale booster of sorts.
     So, again, do not suppose that a café for faculty will open this semester. No. A "center" for "faculty excellence" will open.
     Just sayin'.
     One more thing: a quick reminder. Full-time faculty, be sure to get your lunch orders in early.
     (Just kidding.)

NOT LIKE THIS:
A café in Vienna
MORE LIKE THIS:
An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (it was the closest thing I could find)
NOT THIS:

MUCH MORE LIKE THIS:

Violins on television:


*NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. CREEP stood for "Committee to Reelect the President" (Nixon).

FOR THOSE INTERESTED: I've been spending a good deal of time on my family's blog. You might want to read this little essay that appeared there a few weeks ago: 2001: Ray's death. Or not.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I notice that the MRC has been partially reopened for online and hybrid students in the mornings. Not for assistance of any type, just to use the computers. Why? Online students have computers and have already decided they don't want to trek to the campus, right? So, another curious move by a schizo admin to CYA without much C and a whole lotta A. If you're gonna open it, then do it. What in the hell is going on?

Anonymous said...

Apparently, the cafe idea didn't pan out. The students can now return to the MRC. It's been kept very, very quiet. Shhhhhhhhhh

Anonymous said...

But that's because the cafe was filled with nontoxic stinky gas from the boiler on the roof! What kind of a cafe needs that? Puts a damper on Happy Hour. The waitresses kept complaining.

And yes, everything is kept very quiet. What else is new?

Anonymous said...

I was all excited for a minute cause I like hot little waitresses. Oh well...
ES

Roy Bauer said...

YOU like hot little waitresses? You're complex, you are.

Anonymous said...

If you think carefully about it you will probably remember that you already know this about me. Well, perhaps not necessarily *waitresses*, but still. ES

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...