Gardening at night is never where...

 ...you want to be at any other time of the year except now.  We are now entering the "get it done before 9" portion of the summer, and that occasionally is going to mean low-light situations.  But it has to be done.  Now that I have downtime, I am starting to get things cleaned up thoroughly from the freeze.  It's too much to do in one day, even working through the mid-day sun. So I break it up into sections.  

Today was preliminary weeding in the Near Yard (as opposed to the Front Yard and the Far Yard), and that ended up involving the flamethrower ("Dracaris!")  I couldn't go all-out on the patio because the Bermuda grass is finally showing signs of life and I want it to take over between the flagstones.  Also, the shrimp plant has recovered and is going to remain the centerpiece of its bed, so no mass-flaming there.  

In theory, I should be also working on syllabi, reading, and doing a grade appeal panel, while dealing with larger integrity issues across the college.  I am, in fact, but I'm very non-linear in my approach.  

The rare moment of quiet

For absolutely no reason, I got up before the Mrs. today.  I would have gone for a ride, except it takes me about an hour to be fully ready, and by then I am on household duty in case Boy wakes up early and decides to turn on the TV.

There's only so much one man can do around the house until he annoys his still-somnambulant spouse. Laundry has its limits, as does policing the kitchen.  In the end, the office is still the safest refuge, at least until the coffee is ready for sharing (two Splendas, whipped cream on top --I take mine straight, the way God and Mom intended).

Grades were posted at 5:45am, and files uploaded shortly thereafter to the departmental server.  Enough of you have heard my semi-annual tirade about how this is NOT 1997 and most of this is pure kabuki BS, so I will spare you all but the details: Canvas plus PeopleSoft plus auto-generated reports from the Registrar equals much less work for faculty IF people become even halfway aware of how things work.

So I am done, at least until students actually notice their grades and start whining.  And it is at this point that they all get reminded of what I said on the very first day: "The time to worry about your average is today, not the end of the semester, and certainly not the day after the semester ends."  

Meantime, I drink my coffee in peace.  

An Open Letter On Shared Governance

To: my HCC colleagues, including admins and Trustees but primarily faculty
Re: Shared Governance

“David, why is shared governance eroding?”

Shared governance is eroding because there are those in the administration who believe that faculty will always do what is mandated, without complaint. If the mandates were mostly reasonable, or could be shown to produce demonstrably positive outcomes, that would be one thing.  But increasingly they are not so.  Yes, the Senate speaks out when we see questionable things, but there is a distinct impression that we are merely rabble-rousers.

I really don't want to get into personalities, because multiple fingers can be pointed at multiple people.  Ultimately, though, it comes back to "rank-and-file" faculty basically not speaking up.  Leaders believe it's just the same group of people, always causing problems and making mountains out of molehills.  Yes, I speak loudly and often, perhaps too much so.  I'll own it.  But if I don't speak, who will?

The Board, I feel, sometimes believes faculty are only self-interested, and have begun to ignore us. Again, part of this is because they are used to seeing the same people making the same complaints. This must end.  The Board will eventually meet in-person once again. When they do, we need to be there, and not just “the usual suspects.”

Those of us fighting the fight for shared governance are not in this for our own hind ends, or to advance our careers.  We are in this because at the heart of shared governance is the a priori tenet that faculty are the experts in dealing with students, and that the things we bring forward are going affect the students at some point.

True, HCC has traditionally been an exemplar in shared governance. Faculty here have had a louder voice than at our neighbors' joints.  Yet our peers also teach us something: happy faculty mean better outcomes.  No, that's not a demand to "pay us or we'll do lousy jobs." Being happy faculty is more than just being well-compensated.  It's about feeling valued as part of the institution. 

When you love going to your job (or, pace Covid, logging in to your job), you can accept certain trade-offs.  One of the trade-offs we at HCC have historically made is that we aren't paid as much as our friends at Austin CC, or Tarrant County, or Alamo.  But we can't do all of the giving here.  We can't lose our voice in helping run the college AND be paid less AND be made to do things which will ultimately hurt our students, all good intentions notwithstanding. 

If regular faculty sit by and let these things happen, or rely on the same folks to fight their fights, it's all going to keep going downhill.  And I cannot fight alone.  I'm tired.  I should be up at the lake, doing a lot more fishing and cigar-smoking and grading.  

But not yet. I will be heard instead. Here I stand, I can do no other.

Join me.

--David

Some of the Austrians have already said we're entering Weimar territory. They may be right.

Looming Budget Catastrophe in Pictures So Simple Even Congress Can Understand  --Reason.com

Read the whole thing, as The Man might say.   But then go starting looking at these folks at the Mises Institute.  The Austrians have long warned that inflationary effects usually benefit those nearest the spigot, and that when they have exacted all the benefit they can from it, they turn the spigot off to stop the flooding from reaching their doorsteps.  We may be seeing this now, as even the Fed is starting to say that interest rates may need to rise to stop inflation.

Hey, I remember the Seventies vividly.  Inflation is for tires, not for people.