Tuesday, March 16, 2010

It takes a village to raise a sledge-hammer

Just before the faculty meeting last night, one of my colleagues brought me a sledge-hammer. "You might want to use this if that little gavel doesn't work," he said, but I wondered: use it for what? Pounding on the table or pounding sense into people?

I thought I might need it first thing when I had to announce that the usual hot drinks would not be available during the meeting due to a tragic coffeemaker malfunction, but the faculty did not rise en masse and charge the chair to demand that Faculty Council immediately assuage their caffeine deficiencies. They just sat there and attended to business. That's my kind of meeting.

In the end I had to give the sledge-hammer back, which was more difficult than you might imagine. The person who provided the sledge-hammer disappeared before I had a chance to return it, and I wasn't about to carry it to his office because it would take two of me just to lift the thing--or better yet, it might require an entire committee, the Ad-Hoc Committee to Study the Status of Sledge-Hammer Retention. If I appoint the committee today, we might get a report offering an Action Plan by next fall, and then I'll have to appoint another committee to put the Action Plan into action.

Meanwhile, the sledge-hammer just sits there silently, awaiting further developments. Not a bad strategy if you ask me.

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