The month of July has flown by, filled with meetings (of course!), deadlines (of course!), evaluations (it’s PEP time), professional development, and a brief vacation.
The meetings covered such topics as Testing Center usage, transfer forums in 2019-2020, the THECB Star Award application, our summer Department Chair Institutes, our participation in the Explore Law program in partnership with UT and Huston-Tillotson, our Fall 2019 early alert pilot in Distance Education, full-time faculty hiring, and our OER work with OpenStax.
The deadlines included submitting our Star Award application for our OER work to date (check!), submitting an equity progress report for academic programs (check!), finalizing the Testing Center work group report (check!), and finishing PEP (Performance Excellence Program) evaluations for the folks that I supervise (no check yet – but they’re due August 2, so send me some good evaluative vibes!).
The professional development was an intensive, exhilarating, thought-provoking, inspiring, exhausting week at Stanford University for the Aspen Fellowship, and the vacation was three days in Denver that included museums, good food, and a Dodgers/Rockies baseball game.
Since today is the last day of the month, I’ll tell you what I’ve done today. My flight home from Denver yesterday evening was cancelled, and the rebooked flight was delayed – so I got home about 2:00 AM today (without my luggage). When I woke up a few hours later, I had no comb to drag across my head – literally! (Although I did almost fall out of bed because I was so tired. Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.) First order of business: run out and get some basic toiletries before heading to work. (Figured my colleagues would appreciate it if I brushed my teeth!)
Once at work, I had a 9:30 call with a faculty member about the Fall early alert pilot, and an 11:30 meeting with my boss about some upcoming responsibilities in support of the Board of Trustees (specifically, their regular August meeting and their later-in-August retreat). In between I caught up (a bit) on email and visited with folks – catching up, checking in, reconnecting. And before you know it, I was headed downstairs to the Board Room for the start of our third Department Chair Institute at 1:00 (tomorrow at San Gabriel, Friday at South Austin) – saying hello, getting slide decks up and running, and kicking-off the event.
It is now 5:45 and I’m tapped out – but tomorrow is the start of a new month, with new meetings and new deadlines and new opportunities. So as we say farewell to the old month and greetings to the new month, keep your fingers crossed for me on the PEPs. And celebrate the new!