September 6, 2024

Building off what I thought was a one-off poem to the joys of missing faculty and staff orientation week, I find myself still turning to verse as I remember the next parts of a provost's life inside higher education. Since I sense a series developing here, I think I will call that series "Outside Higher Ed."

The First Week

"What'd I miss?" I inquire, like the seasoned student

Who can reason a week one's answer:

The tedious syllabus review, the icebreaker exercise,

The reflection, pre-assessment, assignment

Ungraded but required participation,

The box checked for external appropriations.

As ex-administrator I no longer feel enrollment's final thrust,

The excitement over eventual numbers

That push the institution past projected goals

With applicants last-in, first-out,

Non-attendees, still given a chance to appeal

To be re-enrolled even though

It's regularly told they will not stick around,

Let alone, be around, for when final grades roll.

Meanwhile, small classes will be green-lighted,

In that attempt to save an off-site,

An off program or an especially off-putting partner.

Students will study schedules printed long ago,

Now exceptionally wrong, rooms changed,

Different instructor names.

Air-conditioning will be on the fritz,

Projectors will be found with no bulbs,

Dozens of calls will go to an administrative assistant,

While her boss wanders the halls listening

To classes too full, classes too quiet,

Or emptying way too soon.

For as long as I can remember

This is always the first week of September:

Resources depleted, deployed never where needed,

To provide the easy press

And to pump up someone's CV

For their next Board of Trustees.