Amid bad faith and cynical evasions, the incoming chair of the senate offers hope.
After Randall P. McMurphy tried but failed to lift a heavy machine, he offered a resounding phrase in the screenplay to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest:"
"But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that." http://sfy.r/?script=one_flew
I rehearsed that phrase several times in my head in an attempt to calm down before a report to the Faculty Senate last Monday [10 May 2010]. The always wily, always deceptive Faculty Advancement Committee [FAC] had reported via one of its six chairs. See "The Persistence of Blather" [11 December 2009] and "O! To be Mentored by Mental Midgets now that Spring is Here" [immediately previous entry in this blog, 24 April 2010].
The incoming Chair of the Faculty Senate, in his capacity as mere senator, had asked whether the FAC might move to change the Bylaws [one chair] to match FAC practice [six allegedly co-equal chairs]. He said that he preferred adjusting the Bylaws to circumventing the Bylaws. A novel notion that! Yes, we could follow the rules and, if we would not follow the rules, change the rules so that they resemble our practice.
The feckless, accommodating, thankfully outgoing chair of the Faculty Senate produced a communication from the FAC in which the FAC updated its deceptions and evasions. Does any member of the faculty remember when we had a Faculty Senate Chair who was not supine?
The member of the FAC presenting the report declined to pursue such a change. It would be unsual for a member of the FAC to take a straight path to any object or to acknowledge the authority of the faculty or the senate!
Then, in a usurpation that would have been merely hilarious were it not so pathetic and fatuous, the spokesperson attempted to "charge" the incoming chair to change the Bylaws himself. Ya gotta love FAC logic. A senator attempting to induce the FAC to follow the rules is asked to serve the FAC by changing rules that the FAC is content to flout.
Then senators were regaled with a flagrant misreading of a passage in the Bylaws that, if one were unfamiliar with standard English, might fool a dull sophomore. But let's keep it positive: how many FAC members have failed of our expectations for dull sophomores?
Rather than in anger, how might I respond to such vaudeville?
Shall I repeat "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown?"
Shall I rejoice that the spokesperson for the FAC wore flame-resistant pants amid her rendering of the Bylaws?
Shall I remind myself that many members of the FAC could not have found the meeting?
Shall I rebuke the faculty anew for electing to the FAC colleagues of so little credibility or ability?
Nope. Nope. Nope. And nope.
Shall I rejoice that the incoming chair of the Faculty Senate will not subvert the rules or suborn those who do?
Yep.
At least he tried.
God damn it! At least the new chair did that.
Amid the loons, one sane senator spoke truth to a Power Committee.
At the University of Puget Clowns [© Susan Resneck Pierce], that is a miracle.
On the other hand, at the University of Puget Clowns [© Susan Resneck Pierce], loons run the asylum.
Let's see if the new chair will be leader or loon.
Can he do much worse than his predecessors?
2 comments:
Congratulations to the new Senate chair. Perhaps a solution is to change the By Laws so that the dean is not on the FAC, which will then not straddle the Senate and the administration. The dean, like the president, could review files separately (his or her choice). But something needs to be done to remove this perceived special status of the FAC, whereby it is allowed to flout By Laws and mock the Senate. The incoming Senate Chair could also send a letter directly to the Chair of the Board of Trustees, noting the chronic flouting of the By Laws, which Trustees and everyone but the FAC follow. The Trustees will probably say, "And what's so hard about appointing a chair? That's all it takes to be in compliance?!"
Why do you presume that all of the members of the Advancement Comm. can read the faculty code?
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