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Wednesday, May 07, 2003

 
3:21 PM: [#] [0]

so chuck and i had an interesting conversation. if i wasn't emotionally involved with it, and if i didn't already know nothing would come of it, i would have considered it a successful conversation.

he asked me about how i gathered and used metrics, what questions i would ask for the committee on the replacement, and what i was planning to do for the future if i stayed. it's not like we haven't discussed two of those three things several times before and even have documentation about it, but i told him i couldn't tell him what questions to ask the replacement until he or teresa decided what they wanted the position to do. do they want someone doing what jennifer & garrett are doing? because that would be fine, but it would maintain their standard of wild adequacy and all the things they think they want to do and keep putting on lists will never get done. if they want to advance, they should specifically hire someone to help develop course-related linkages within and without the department and campus. they keep saying the right words, but if they're going to hire someone, they need to decide in advance if they're just unwilling to go there yet. it's okay to say no! it would spare everyone a great deal of pain.

we also talked about our excellence at maintenance but unwillingness to risk progress; about making changes during change; about how waiting for the perfect time means there will never be one; about proactive vs. reactive environements; about academic computing here being less about supporting academic changes than promoting the next version of something-or-other.

i'm really good at thinking and talking about online learning and online instructional development at both microscopic (course) and macroscopic (programmatic) levels. what i'm not good at is getting people to do anything about it.