Memos Make the World Go Round

TO: College Community

FROM: Office of the President

RE: blank checks (so to speak)

It has come to My Attention (!) that some academic chairs—you know who you are—will not receive their modest stipends this month.

Due to a glitch, a mistake, blunder, gaffe, oversight, misstep, human error, call it what you will (I know, I know, we're on a roll, folks! Unfinished classrooms! New locks without keys! An overheated greenhouse! A misdirected theater! Light poles sheared by mobile home movage!) the paperwork authorizing the stipends is missing, gone, AWOL. Apparently, the forms were dutifully filled out sometime last summer but failed to make it from one desk in A-200 to another desk—in fact, the paperwork seems to have disappeared in transit.

Let me assure you that Campus Police has been notified and has posted an All Points Bulletin, with lots of punctuation. They are conducting a full investigation. An unusual occurrence report has been filled out. Tape from security cameras is being reviewed, though at this point all that's been discovered is that people get grumpy at the Xerox machine. We have assembled a list of possible suspects, in both alphabetical order and chronological order. My Advisors now believe that the missing paperwork was either filed late or perhaps early, or maybe both. It's really premature in this point in the investigation to tell.

I know this comes at a bad time for some people, though certainly not me. I am having a good time. It's fun being president. I have a special parking spot. I have a window blind. I have a SeaDoo. Yet, this lack of timely compensation might be seen as both a hardship and yes, even an insult. Certainly, the beginning of the Semester makes it obvious that our attempt to compensate chairs for the actual work they do falls short. I know that even though chairs work throughout the summer, they are not compensated for their labor—which means that the trio of chairs left without their checks this month have not been paid since sometime last Spring. Imagine that! Of course we know that none of us at IVC are in it for the money, except for a few administrators and some instructors with 300 per cent overload.

But, as president, I recognize and acknowledge this crisis and want to show my faith in the fine faculty of this institution and so—tomorrow, I, the College President will, dispense personal checks in the amount of the stipends. Yes, my door is open. Of course, my door is always open. Brown bag lunches—come and get it. I won't bite. Ha, ha, ha.

Of course, I do expect to be reimbursed. Those lucky few who receive my personal checks can, once the district antes up, simply pay me back by purchasing a few additions to enhance my family's SeaDoo fleet. (Hint, hint: A sidecar! Vroom! A splashguard with a flame motif!)

Now, the rumor that these three chairs were singled out because of the united front they presented last spring when my lord and savior—excuse me, our Chancellor—visited their school meeting is entirely false. You may recall that during the Chancellor's visit, this very subject surfaced—the compensation of academic chairs—and the Chancellor and myself were rudely grilled by people who obviously didn't know their places. Imagine! Asking the Chancellor and the College President if, during their terms as department chairs—if we received adequate compensation in terms of reassigned time. The nerve! To interrogate one's superiors on whether we found the current model of stipend only plus full teaching load to be appropriate! I mean, really.

Of course, neither the Chancellor nor I are the kind of people who hold grudges, unlike that mouthy middle-aged woman who kept yammering about her inability to teach and manage a department. Other people don't have that problem. It's called cutting corners, babe. Chill out. In other words, don't work so hard. Others don't. I know. Why should you?

Furthermore, the scandalous gossip—yes, I have heard—that the Board and this Office were too busy negotiating six figure buyouts for administrators to be bothered with the small potatoes of faculty stipends is also patently false. There's enough money to go around folks. Don't worry. You'll get yours.