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The Importance of a Strategy

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Here’s what happened. My university decided to close my department. I received order number four to put in paperwork to close the French program. And the German. And Chinese. As all preceding times, I ignored the order.

We were slated to be eliminated together with another department. That department is now gone. Mine remains in place and undamaged. We haven’t lost any languages, nobody was let go, no changes at all were made.

I have a strategy that I won’t reveal for now because I’m still playing it. I will continue playing it, and the department will be undamaged, for as long as I’m department Chair. My second term ends on June 30, 2026, and our statutes don’t allow for a third term. Not that I want a third term because I’m tired. But it’s kind of shocking that I kept French alive after all the faculty in French retired and the administration was raring to cancel it. Instead I actually managed to hire into the program in the midst of a hiring freeze.

This academic year we are proceeding exactly as always, with all the languages and programs intact, and people who know the situation keep asking, “BUT HOW IS IT POSSIBLE??”

The Chair of the other department slated for closing played a different strategy and lost. He went for immediate gratification, and that’s never going to lead to success.

I will now serve out my term calmly without any unnecessary upheaval. After that, it’s out of my hands.

11 responses to “The Importance of a Strategy”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    Won’t you talk to the next Chair privately and explain your strategy? And why you think another one would not succeed?

    Btw, can you return for a forth or a fifth term, after somebody else?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I could return after a 3-year break but I don’t see the point. I also don’t believe there will be much to return to after three years.

      Giving pointers to others, it’s simply not how things work. My colleagues don’t have a realistic understanding of the situation. They are used to me always coming and making things right. “It’s ok, you’ll solve it as always” is what I hear whenever effort is needed to figure things out.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        \ They are used to me always coming and making things right. 

        But the next Chair should understand it will be his/her job to make things right.

        \ My colleagues don’t have a realistic understanding of the situation.

        Do you mean the next Chair will refuse to accept reality, even if you try to explain what’s going on? For instance, at a private dinner, only two of you?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          We are great friends, we talk all the time. But I’m not trying to get into a situation where I’m a puppet master from behind the scenes. I don’t want to be in this situation. I have accepted the limits of my power. 😁

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      2. el Avatar
        el

        You seem resigned to total destruction of your department under the next Chair.

        I am surprised since when money and keeping one’s job are concerned, people tend to become super realistic and ready to fight tooth and nail, even if they aren’t as educated and intelligent as uni profs. Especially so, if finding another job like this will be pretty much impossible to most your colleagues, if the department closes.

        Obviously, you know best, but would the next Chair ignore you, if you privately explained everything ? Could this hurt you, so you don’t want to give it a try at least?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          You think I haven’t tried to make this case? I’ve been making it since I started working here in 2009. I’ve been screeching on every corner that this model is unrealistic and it will come crashing down on our heads. All I ever got in return is pouting. When things really started crashing, I got more pouting.

          To give an example, one of the reasons why we are slated for elimination first is because we refuse to show up at work more than twice a week. Everybody wants to teach on a two-days-a-week schedule. This leads to extremely low enrollments (I won’t go into detail, just believe me that it’s crushing enrollments), we lose Majors, Academic Scheduling hates us because we are trying to bunch up all the courses we teach into the time slots between noon and 3 pm on Monday and Wednesday. The Dean’s office is angry because nobody is at work on Fridays and there are no people in offices to conduct activities, meet students, etc. And no, other departments don’t do it. They are confused by the very idea.

          Is it super realistic to expect to get a full-time salary when never showing up at work beyond twice a week? Do you know how many times I made that point? I begged, I explained, I cajoled. Zero results. Zero.

          And this is only one among many examples. “Isn’t this job worth showing up three times a week?” is exactly how I put it. Not a single person agreed.

          “You can’t be a Full Professor with a salary of $90,000 and teach 3 sections of Spanish 101, two of them online” is another argument I’ve been making for years. It’s not landing well either.

          Yeah, I’m so ready to step down.

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          1. cliff arroyo Avatar
            cliff arroyo

            “expect to get a full-time salary … showing up at work …twice a week?”

            People where I work want just two (maybe three) days a week because they’ve got side hustles going on but I don’t remember US language teachers having much of that…

            What are they doing that they can’t show up at work?

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Beats me.

              The most insane part is that since I’m the only person who teaches MWF mornings, I have excellent enrollments. Simply because it’s a convenient time for students, so they sign up. You have no idea the kind of conspiracy theories that have been generated to explain my high enrollments. When the answer is simply that everybody wants to teach MW at noon, and your class has enormous competition. While my class has zero competition because nobody wants to teach MWF at 10 am. That’s all there is to it.

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              1. Avatar
                Anonymous

                Most of our faculty want to teach Tuesday Thursday 10-2 all across campus and it’s a bloodbath for those slots. Endless conflicts for students, not enough classrooms.

                I like to each late in the afternoon MWF and have my pick of the classroom, which is important to me (to have the exact white board setup and good acoustics that I want).

                I also have large enrollments and the schedule is definitely part of it, although it’s also instructor reputation. There is one class where I and another person teach two sections of the same class at the same time, and I always have a waitlist and while the other one is half full.

                – xyk

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              2. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                These battles for 2-day schedules are very annoying to me. People latch on to these schedules like their lives depend on them. That grownups need to come to work seems to be a very complex idea.

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  2. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “battles for 2-day schedules are very annoying to me”

    I’ve usually had three day schedules and it never bothered me and mostly stayed unchanged from year to year. But this year, the administration changed the day for faculty meetings from Thursday to Wednesday and it created havoc for the poor person who had to make the schedule.

    I said I’m fine any times between 9.45-16.30 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and ended up with a two day schedule (6 teaching hours* on Tuesday and Thursday). So far… so good.

    *University classes here are almost always 90 minutes which counts as two hours, so I have three classes on each day. I can’t complain….

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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