24 faculty members are now gone... in Tea at the Cabin in the Woods

Yesterday I went into the office hoping to get a jump on the development of a new course in Abnormal Psychology when my last remaining colleague came in. She told me a total of 24 faculty members are now gone, leaving us with 36 full-time faculty. Our division consisted to Sociology, Social Work, Criminal Justice and Psychology with 10 faculty members. As of now, we have 2 psychologist and one C.J. professors. There is no Social Work or Sociology faculty left. We are shell shocked. The Psychology program was voted the best program at the school and we took the biggest hit. Does that make any sense at all?

I have worked for the past two years to be the only Psychology Program in the State that teaches everything required to meet the State's Core Competencies as outlined by the Mental/Behavioral Health Collaborative (I serve on this collaborative). Yesterday I pondered how we are going to maintain this high level of learning... I may have to tap into the resources at the collaborative and ask some of my fellow members to adjunct courses. Maybe this will work... Now it figure out which courses H and I can handle on our own... It's going to be a lot different this year.

So we have lost all these professors and next month the college is knocking down the Business Building to build a new building complete with a new theater, student center, conference center, classrooms and faculty offices. Hummm.... we have 5 empty offices in my building now - who will fill the new offices in the new building?

The new building is being named after a long time business professor who just retired. He has been with the college for 40 years and a great guy. That money is from a different fund than the operating budget which pays employees. The Capital Funds have built us a new turf field for the soccer, lacrosse, rugby and field hockey teams - which has had 2 seasons on it so far. Now we will have a new State of the Art Building... with no one to teach in it. Maybe it will help generate more students and allow us to hire back professors? We sure hope so...

The capital fund is also planning on building a new gym & fitness center... Sure would be nice if they pay us out of some of that money... Isn't that the way of things? We have that "Field of Dreams" mentality... "If you build it, they will come." Let's all pray it works.

Well, I need to actually get some work done. Lots of curriculum to change and courses to develop... Wish me luck. So much for the summer off - guess that was just a dream... sigh.