I have a cold that I caught through some combination of the ever-present miasma of contagions that thrive on college campuses, and the miserable, dragged-out, never-going-to-fucking-end winter that we're having. (Spring appears to have been a false alarm.) I have no strength to deal with anything, and I have to go to campus soon because I have multiple student meetings scheduled, to say nothing of my evening class. I literally no longer care what my students earn for their final GPAs. Give 'em all As.
Or Fs.
Or Cs.
Or Qs.
Fuck. This. Shit.
I'm also nursing some sprained pride: it looks like my upper-division topics seminar course scheduled for the fall will be canceled, since exactly one student has registered for it to date. (SLACs love their small classes, but there's still a minimum enrollment that we have to hit.) If this happens, the seminar will be replaced in my roster by a second section of the Intro to Pseudology course. In fact, from an utterly selfish standpoint, that would be a great outcome for me. I'll be hitting the job market full-time in August, and it would be a relief to have only two preps to teach — and an even bigger relief that the most difficult syllabus to plan and execute would be off my plate. I suppose I should be pleased at this possibility.
But it feels like burning down the house for the insurance money; shouldn't I want to teach new courses, stretch myself, and demonstrate my professional versatility? I also wonder if this doesn't reflect poorly on me as a teacher (and, by extension, my department) that I can't seem to get the measly minimum enrollment. My intellect tells me that this is not about my poor skills, but about my status as a little-known quantity at CBU: the students are mostly risk-averse, and aren't highly inclined to take a new upper-division course with a professor most of them don't know. But still, my emotions are stung. Come on, people.
Or Fs.
Or Cs.
Or Qs.
Fuck. This. Shit.
I'm also nursing some sprained pride: it looks like my upper-division topics seminar course scheduled for the fall will be canceled, since exactly one student has registered for it to date. (SLACs love their small classes, but there's still a minimum enrollment that we have to hit.) If this happens, the seminar will be replaced in my roster by a second section of the Intro to Pseudology course. In fact, from an utterly selfish standpoint, that would be a great outcome for me. I'll be hitting the job market full-time in August, and it would be a relief to have only two preps to teach — and an even bigger relief that the most difficult syllabus to plan and execute would be off my plate. I suppose I should be pleased at this possibility.
But it feels like burning down the house for the insurance money; shouldn't I want to teach new courses, stretch myself, and demonstrate my professional versatility? I also wonder if this doesn't reflect poorly on me as a teacher (and, by extension, my department) that I can't seem to get the measly minimum enrollment. My intellect tells me that this is not about my poor skills, but about my status as a little-known quantity at CBU: the students are mostly risk-averse, and aren't highly inclined to take a new upper-division course with a professor most of them don't know. But still, my emotions are stung. Come on, people.
I'm with you. My night class for next semester is on the road to destruction. Only one person signed up. It's the only class I could legitimately teach a little Shakespeare, but now I'm going to have to work it in to my Gen Ed classes. Sucks to be my students!
ReplyDeleteI hope you start feeling better soon. Selfishly, I'm enjoying the cool weather, since summer is like my kryptonite.