I'm now at the start of my second year at Lincoln University. I always like the beginning of the semester--students have a heightened level of intensity at this point in the year. New classes, new expectations, students don't change much.
I'm working from the third floor reference desk, where I was last night due to a power snafu on the main floor that didn't allow that reference desk terminal to be used. A help ticket was turned in to the maintenance office--it's not an IT issue so who knows when it will be fixed? The glacial pace at which tasks get accomplished at this university is truly astonishing. We're still waiting on the vendor responsible for the sliding glass doors between the second floor computer lab and the reference area to be fixed. Until that happens, we cannot offer 24/7 access to the computer lab. There is no sense of urgency--only resignation and frustration that we're in this for the long haul.
I once wrote on this page about a former employer of mine, Bill Jaeger, who often complained of people's stunning lack of information and/or curiosity about the two things in life they spend the most money on--their homes and their cars. It often feels like that in higher ed, too.
*Otis Blackwell, Jimmy "Handy Man" Jones, c. 1959.
