Concluding the Summer Course Debacle

My letter to the powers that be. The things I wanted to say but wisely cut out are in brackets.

It seems like this has been a doomed exercise from the start. [If this had been a date, I'd have asked for the check and run for the door like I'd stumbled across and East Coast/West Coast rap feud. Honestly, people playing Romeo and Juliet will look to this for how to do star-crossed properly.]

The course did finally get the third student, but though she registered yesterday, she didn't appear on the course roster until late today. The new problem is that somehow the other two students didn't know the course was to be a six week course [and honestly, isn't there a standard on this?.] It doesn't show online as six weeks though those are the hours we submitted for it. [I don't have a copy of the catalog to verify how it shows there, but I'd bet my meager paycheck it got screwed up there, too]. That does mean, though, that they can't take the course unless I change it to work in a four week session.

I don't see any good way to make this a four week course, and honestly, the whole [SNAFU-ridden, Byzantine] process has left me drained and disinterested [not to mention angry, resentful, and more inclined than ever - and who'd have thought it possible - that I must find a lifeboat from this slowly sinking ship] . I'll assume someone else will explain to the students how and why the course isn't going to make.

Apologies for my frustration.
Really I put this together so that when I someday get to do an exit interview, I can give them a 30 page, reference document. Not that I'm bitter.

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dance said...

My condolences.

Side note: the registrar's office at your college sounds like a broken-down mess, possibly designed or maintained while someone was smoking crack.

May 21, 2008 at 10:34 PM

I was going to offer my own condolences, but I don't think I can put it any better than dance just did.

May 22, 2008 at 4:36 PM