AS some of you know, department chairs serve as “night dean” one evening every semester. For that evening, the ND holds all the power of the college in her hands. You know, the football, the red phone to the Kremlin, keys to Glenn’s office so the night dean can swivel in his chair, a sidearm for personal use, a private Cushman to tool around the grounds in, the presidential Seadoo to cruise the Gensler Lagoon. Being night dean is sort of like being lieutenant governor. Rebel Girl looked around for special orders to sign in during this evening’s power vacuum but found none, alas.Rebel Girl knows she should use this time to grade papers, review applications in the adjunct pool, clear her desk and revise curriculum but she has been going all day and simply doesn’t have it in her. So she orders a medium size Moroccan pizza (baked eggplant, pesto, feta, pine nuts & mozzarella) from Z-Pizza and pops a lemon Snapple. She’s feeling particularly flush since she (and the other two chairs in her school) finally got paid! A check appeared in her mailbox, made out from the district's "Revolving Cash Fund" account. However, the amount of her check is puzzling and leaves her to wonder just how much she isn’t getting paid. Still, she’ll shut up and deposit it. She'll sit on the "Revolving Cash Fund" and rotate. She'll pay her property tax. And if anyone could help her figure out the compensation package, she would appreciate it.
6:00: My reign begins quietly with no fanfare at all. I look down at the slip of paper that Cathy at the front desk has provided me. It lists the extension for the campus police radio and the switchboard.6:15: Distant colleague warns to watch for the famous IVC ghost: the spirit of excellence, dead these ten years. It occasionally returns to animate appliances and inspire paper jams.
6:45: Heightened activity at Xerox machine as 7:00 class start time nears. The mood is good. No paper jams.
7:40: Inquiry regarding location of adjunct professor mailbox. Parties directed to file cabinets adjacent to faculty office area.
7:54: Desultory patrol of A-200 hallway reveals a small oscillating fan purring in A241. Since the door is open and the lights are off and the fan seems to be cooling no one and nothing, night dean switches off the fan.
8:00: On the re-broadcast of Talk of the Nation, Lynn Neary interviews Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and George Packer (author of Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq) about the new politics of Iraq. Phased withdrawal? Phased redeployment? Civil war? Sectarian violence? Power vacuum? A new way into a new policy? Common ground?
8:35: Unexpected noise in the hallway inspires night dean to peek out of her office. She sees her H& L colleague with a bright yellow backpack. He appears to be leaving the premises. She waves. He waves back.
8:41: Lynn Neary wants to know: Does a candidate’s race or gender create complications for voters? In other words, Obama or Hillary? Who wouldn’t you vote for first? Last? To what degree are gender and race assets? To what degree liabilities?
8:46: Did Rebel Girl mention that Chunk bought her the terrific radio she listens to in the office? What would she do without him?
8:47: Virginia calls from Grass Valley CA to say she resents the whole discussion. She thinks of people as people. She thinks the media is promoting this thought process that divides America.
8:52: A quick patrol of the A-200 hallways reveals heightened activity at the Xerox machine. With her newly acquired room usage awareness, Rebel Girl is interested to see if indeed all the rooms are being used—indeed, all rooms in A-200 are full, with the inexplicable exception of A-205, which is already dark. In the honors lounge, a student stands behind the couch and plays with the pillows. Rebel Girl wonders if the faculty lounge will ever have comparable furnishings. She feels slightly ashamed at her envy, her pettiness.
8:58: Lynn Neary claims to be in Washington. Support for NPR from Abbott Cheese.9:00: Coffee cart seems to be closing.
9:05: Rebel Girl leaves her home number at the front desk. There are three pieces of pizza left.
6 comments:
Scintillating!
Creepy!
Impious!
That pizza sounds yummy.
Chunkinteresting
Hey Reb. It's good to see the chairs pitching in on the evening admin duties, saving the college a few pennies here and there. It must be quite a cost savings to train already competent employees like faculty and deans in crisis management. A few workshops in CPR and First Aid are a great start. But I bet you all know exactly what to do in any situation from a drug deal gone bad on the second floor of the Library to a loss of phone and electrical in an earthquake. And I know you know what to do if a dad finds his son dead in Lot #2. Shoot, I bet you even have a master key so that in the event of a locked classroom and a teacher and 30 students standing in a dark corridor, you can just unlock, flip on the cheery lights, and voila!--education. I would even go so far as to wager that you know where the college stash of emergency equipment and resources is located--you know, flashlights, blankets, shortwave radio, flares. Blood-borne pathogens don't scare you evening admins. No siree. The college has taken responsibility for your training.
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