Thursday, August 21, 2008

Warning: Rant ahead

One thing that drives me crazy about my department is their resistance to change. And I don't mean big changes- I mean schedule changes. Having our faculty meeting at a different day and time? No way. Last fall, my U changed the fall schedule so that classes now start on a Monday instead of Tuesday. Freshmen used to move into the dorms the Friday before, but since the calendar changed by one day, they have changed move-in day to the Thursday before. My department schedules a lunch with new grad students the week before classes and this has always been on Thursday of that week. Well, despite the change in the university calendar, we are still having this lunch on Thursday, which now coincides with move-in day (when 10 million new students arrive with their parents to move into their dorms and campus traffic and parking is ridiculous). I have always stayed away from campus on move-in day and when D started school, it became our school-shopping day. I missed the lunch last year because I am not going to change our back-to-school tradition  and will miss it again this year. The fall get-together at someone's house has always been on Sunday (which was fine when classes started on Tuesday). Having it the day before classes start is hardly convenient. Does anyone else have annoying things like this going on in their departments? You would think that the university calendar would impact the way a department plans, but mine is stubbornly sticking to the old schedule which no longer makes sense. Maybe PMS is making extra annoying this year?

2 comments:

Arbitrista said...

Some folks are just constitutional incapable of changing anything about anything. I was part of a volunteer organization that had been around for 40 years and just couldn't see why they couldn't do everything exactly the same they always had. And they wondered why they were losing members! It's really remarkable. My sympathies.

Psych Post Doc said...

I would be totally cranky if my department tried to make me come to campus on move in day. That is ridiculous.