the view from the chair

So there's this woman in the ESL department, let's call her "Linda," who has been crazy supportive and wonderful to Rachel and me over the last almost-year. She was my next-door neighbor before I moved back upstairs. She's been an invaluable resource. Only, I hate her.

OK, maybe not hate. But things have gotten weird. Historically, Linda has butted heads with the head of our SLC. They just don't get each other. SLC head is an activist for our students, very in-the-trenches. Linda is a teacher, from now until death, and she makes this known whenever possible. You wouldn't think this would be a conflict, but that's because you are neither a teacher nor an activist.

Anyway, the ESL department has always been housed entirely in our SLC, CALA. For the upcoming year, it is being split between CALA and MPA. But Linda, frustrated with our current and soon-to-be-changing-anyway leadership, pulled a fast move and, without telling anyone, got herself switched an entirely different SLC. This has ramifications for everyone, students and teachers alike. Already, I am unhappy.

Imagine my surprise, then, to see that instead of being given the ESL co-chair position unopposed, as is usually the case when someone steps up for a thankless job, I am running against Linda. And imagine my further surprise when, instead of being at the ESL department meeting where we are voting on department chair, Linda instead attends the English department meeting where, I am told, she tells everyone that she would love to run for English department chair, if she were not already the chair of the ESL department, and that next year the two departments should be merged.

What the fuck?!?

Anyway I found out yesterday that I am, in fact, the co-chair, and that our most excellent frat-boy/hardass Rene is the chair, as I'd thought all along. And I can tell you that if I have anything to do with it, we will be working very closely with the English department, but we will not be merging. There's so much drama and political infighting there that I feel the focus very rarely strays back to the students. The strength of the ESL department has always been that, as a closely united front, we don't have this problem. Or at least, we never have before.