Offleash

It's back to work. Hope you all had a good break. I did my taxes and got sick --- which isn't as bad as it sounds because 1) I at wasn't at CSUSM; 2) I'm getting a refund (however small); 3) I had a chance to read a few good novels; 4) I started the break out at a very interesting conference in a very fun city (SF).

And, for a very (very) fleeting moment, I was on top of the NCAA brackets --- but having picked neither of the final two teams, I expect to be dethroned by someone much more prescient than I am about hoop matters. Ah well . . . .

This week is a busy one. We have a Senate meeting ---- the agendas are starting to get crowded, so please try to read your agenda and the accompanying packets before the meeting. If you are giving a report, please keep it short --- we have lots of business that has to get done. We can always come back to reports if we speed through the rest of the agenda.

Also, I have to go to the Chancellor's Office. The various academic senate chairs from the other campuses are getting together to compare notes. I'll know more at the end of the week about how the budget stuff is working at other campuses and report on that then. Early information sharing suggests a wide variation across the system about how involved (as opposed to how 'represented' and how 'present') faculty senates are at the budget tables on other campuses. I hope to learn a lot. Actually, I hate going to Chancellor's Office. For all the benefits (and maybe someone could remind me what these might be) of being in a big system, there is a stultifying centralizing tendency (not to mention a feeling of umerited superiority, in part because they take themselves soooooo seriously) that emanates from Golden Shore. One is expected to feel like country cousin in visiting and to marvel at central CSU wisdom. Fat chance. Oh well, I'm sure I'll survive.

Only 5 weeks more of being Senate Chair. One thing that spring break hammered home was how much I want this year to be over.

More later.

Your indulgence please --- it's going to take a little time to make my point today.

Anyway, for those of you tracking the Senate's business this year, one of the more interesting little issues has been that related to the name of the Science II building. Those of you in Science II or Science I know the havoc that name confusion causes to students, visitors and delivery people -- the rest of us learned something. In the fall, the Senate passed a resolution suggesting a name change and tasking itself to set up a task force to look into possible names and then passing that on to the administration for consideration.

Well for a variety of reasons (mostly my screwups) it took some time to get this all rolling. Then the Senate got a memo suggesting that we shouldn't spend our time doing this, as a name change wasn't in the cards in any event --- too expensive. In one of my stupidest moves as Senate Chair, I was willing to let this go ---- because, I reasoned, how much political capital do you want to spend on such an issue? My feisty Executive Committee reminded me that I am usually the advocate for not taking no for an answer and they suggested I stiffen up my spine a bit. So, we went ahead and formed the task force and asked the Provost to please bring us info on how much it might cost (if she had ready access to such info) --- which she kindly did. The cost, while not insignificant, falls into the realm of what around here (in less budgetarily stringent times) used to commonly be termed 'chump change', 'money I found vacuuming the sofa cushions' and what my sometime colleagues at Quantico call 'decimal dust'. Anyway the process moves forward.

The reason I brought this up was because within 6 hours of having received the Office of Communications email yesterday about the opening of the new University Store on the 5th floor of Craven (looking out into Founders' Plaza), I got several emails pointing out that the "Creative Naming Committee" at CSUSM has been at it again. So, not to confuse anyone, the old University Store will now be known as the University Bookstore and the new University Store will be known as the University Store. Well, at least they are located relatively near one another, so that students, visitors and delivery people won't suffer too much when the confusion kicks in. Still, this is not the Senate's business or our purview ------ we'll just have fun saying "we told you so".

I had a peek into the store yesterday. One of the interesting developments on campuses since I started my undergraduate career decades ago is, of course, that university (book)stores make much more money selling logo'd stuff and junk, office supplies and drug store sundries than they make selling books. It's probably even more true these days with the advent of online bookstores, etc. More power to them -- and I hope ours is very, very successful

I do wish though that the powers that be will ---- at least during the week before and the couple weeks after semesters begin --- rethink their announced plans to keep the University Bookstore closed on Fridays and only open to 3 on M-Th. After all, shouldn't it be a bit easier to buy a book on a college campus than a to buy a t-shirt -------- at least right before classes start???? I honestly don't care if students wear a CSUSM hoodie to my first class, but I would like them to have a copy of the first book we're going to read.

Urban legends, campus-style from the Chronicle of Higher Ed via the CSU's Daily Clips here

Some more serious news from yesterday's meeting of CSU Academic Senate Chairs later. I'm traveling today, that is if United Airlines cooperates and isn't hit by the chaos that has plagued American all week. Fingers crossed.