Closing time

Hal writes:

Today was the last day of finals at UWP. I spent this morning working with my co-instructor for Intro to College Life calculating final grades for our course. The rest of the day has been a madness of students checking out and closing down the building. Sorry that there have not been any posts recently, but the week has been busy like that.

Anna and I will be leaving tomorrow to visit both sets of families for the holidays. Perhaps I might even find time to write our Christmas letter and send it out to you. :)

Wisdom of Jim

Hal writes:

My good friend Jim defines the bulk of work of a Resident Director as "meetings and paperwork". This week I would be in strong agreement. The end of the year brings with it a number of administrative tasks that keeps me busy all day and evening. I fell myself getting warn out from starting work at 8am and not finishing until 10pm. Anna is afriad that when I get a real job I won't know what to do with myself in the evenings...

Minnesot-ahhhhh

Minnesota has been deemed the healthiest state for the fourth year in a row. (Minnesota has been ranked 1st in 11 of 17 reports on health and wellness.) Wisconsin was tenth, by that is still a rather good showing. Perhaps it is the odor of cows that keeps Wisconsin down in the rankings? That can be toxic at times... ;)

You got summoned!

Hal writes:

Today and yesterday UW-Platteville was visited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), formally known as the North Central accreditation Agency. The role of this organization is to decide whether or not to continue accreditation of a college or university for a 10 year period. A lot of work goes into this process a couple of years prior to the arrival of the group. UW-Platteville became the first university to put all of the Self-Study Report online, so you can glance at it.

The HLC team was a group of eight individuals from across the US that are profs, provosts, and presidents of other schools. While visiting campus, they have the ability to "summon" anyone at will to ask questions about the self-study. Yesterday I received a call that one of the team members wanted to meet with me today. (And last night, I had a nightmare that I answered a question wrong and UWP didn't get accredited, but that's another story.)

Today I met with Dr. Neely from Eastern New Mexico University. Dr. Neely met with me to talk about the overall work with Academic Staff Senate (I'm the Vice Chair of the group). I'll admit that it was a mixture of excitement and nervousness that I was a part of this very important process. I can only hope that my answers were both truthful/reflective of the campus and at the same time were beneficial for the university.

Or, as I was teasing some of my RAs today, if I screwed up, their diplomas aren't worth anything. ;)

How do they expect me to work in these conditions?

Hal writes:

On Sundays, I typically work in the RD office and do my RD weekly report and catch up on e-mail, conduct letters, maintenance reports, and other items that didn't get taken care of during the week. I also can do all these things between watching football games, but when the Vikings are actually shown in the area (like today) a lot of yelling occurs and things don't get done.

Well, today I didn't spend very much time in my office. The thermostat read 51 degrees (see photo below) and my fingers were frozen within a couple of minutes. My desk worker was huddled under a blanket, although her conditions were slightly more favorable (60 degrees). I have a suspicion that in order to cut down on costs, my building has been set to not heat during certain times. Funny how those times seem to align with the custodial and maintenance department hours and not the lowly RD and his working hours. Scandal!

Brrrr... Frost bite on my fingers. I bet the RDs at the University of Hawaii don't have this probelm...

Oscar's Pike

Hal writes:

Today was Trapper's birthday and as a part of the festivities we at lunch at a place called Oscar's Pike in Galena, IL. It had great food and a very fun atmosphere. You can see the autographed celebrity photographs behind us. We each tried to match up a famous picture to someone in our group. Apparently I look more like Woody Allen than Tom Selak.


Pictured from left to right: RD Trapper, RD Matt, Kim (Matt's wife), me, Anna, RD Jen, Jason (Jen's flame), and RD Stef.