The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 12, 2024, 09:23:20 AMMore of the same.

A double chunk. Now for a nap.

Hmmm.... Any chance that this can be delayed 6 weeks?  Here, no sick leave is available in the summer (unless you are teaching a class that starts after the illness/injury).   IF you can put it off until August, then you can access your sick leave and maybe recover over the Fall, when the weather is cooler for the PT that follows.   Otherwise, at least here, the sick leave built up over years, does no good. 

My own plans, to the extent possible, is to schedule surgery only in the long terms.  Im not going to lose a vacation and take a pay cut if unable to teach summer to get surgery.   No one should retire without ensuring that knees, hips, shoulders, hands, eyes, & anthing else are repaired before retirement... and the treatment should take place in the long semester while sick leave is available.   I dont write the rules, I just have to manage my plans within them.   If this causes difficulties for my employer, perhaps they will change the rules!  (but they wont!) 

Anyway, I hope that this is resolved quickly, with minimal pain and aggravation!  Good Luck! 

Happy Mother's Day!  Im sort of surprised that this topic was not brought up earlier...  Sunday, late afternoon!

Anyone doing something particularly nice for the mothers in their life?

Any mothers want to share how they were celebrated today?

I hope that all those who are mothers or have mothers in their lives, have a great day with family!

We watched some more Prime movies this weekend.  Friday was The Interview (2014), another Seth Rogan and James Franco comedy about a TV entertainment/gossip show host and his producer getting an interview with Kim Jong Un.  There were some funny parts, and it was amusing, but I don't think it was as laugh out loud funny across the board as This is the End.

Last night was BlacKkKlansman (2018), which was better but still not great.  This one is more of a drama/action flick about a Black police officer who becomes a KKK member as part of an undercover investigation.  The acting was good, but for me sometimes Spike Lee get to be a bit much when driving home his point.  He used some similar techniques as in Malcolm X, but I don't think it really worked nearly as well.  The latter was just a way better film overall, but both Washington father and son were great in their roles.  Anyway, this is based on a true story, which is one of the reasons that I think it could have and should have been better.  It's a pretty interesting story to begin with! The Klan members and bad apple police are quite disturbing, but I just don't feel that it was built up or played out as well as it could have been.  Some of the people and events didn't really make sense, like there were some deleted scenes or something (though the trivia says that there weren't any, which is apparently rare).  Still worth a watch for the story, though.

Welcome to the world of theocratic government.

Good morning!

Got to genius with pangrams so far.  Yesterday we each got to QBABO.  I think my final words were nada, cancan (I am nearly sure I already had the latter but am glad I tried it!).

No luck on LB.  Congrats on your 2fers!

Thanks for the good wishes for daughter and son-in-law-to-be! It is really weird to think about that for some reason.

We went out a couple times last night to see if we could capture the lights, and husband sort of got a photo using his night mode sensor on his Android.  My phone may not have that (iPhone).  I'm still not sure if it's there and we just can't see it but might be able to capture it with phone sensors, or if this is all some big trick designed to make us dejected and more tired the next day.  We are going to try again tonight.  I will see if there are any camera apps that might have that night option for me.  I swear I used to have that at one point.

Ciao_yall, wow, that sounds wonderful!

Happy solving!

More of the same.

Good morning!

QB yesterday with 1LH for canna and nanny. Genius with both pangrams today.

LB: I had the "official" brushwork-kempt. No 2fer yet today—congratulations, ciao_yall, for finding one so quickly!

Congratulations to your daughter, ab_grp! And ciao_yall, that sounds like a great trip.

No northern lights here, either—we had dense cloud cover both nights. However, people in northern parts of the state were posting spectacular photos on Facebook.

Happy puzzling!

VERY short version of my ongoing vent: the bone in my left foot that I broke 13 months ago is not, in fact, healed, per a CAT scan. A "really bad" surgery is in my future, with minimally 10 weeks of strict, no-fudging non-weight bearing to follow (and likely longer, based on my diabetes and slow healing history).

When the surgeon says it's "really bad" and tells me "don't be surprised if we have to redo it one or more times" (not to scare me, but to let me know what to expect) I know it's not going to be a great summer. Waiting now to hear from his nurse to get scheduled, sometime in July at the earliest. . . .

No garden for me this year, aside from sowing some flower seeds into the raised beds over the next couple of days, and planting my hanging baskets. I'm the gardener, not ALHS, and it's not fair to make a lot of work for him. Also, he's extremely anemic after his second knee replacement, and the 3-week quest to get him an iron infusion is still ongoing (another whole vent in itself).

Right now, I'm trying not to think about any of it as much as possible, and to get my ducks in a row so all the things I won't be able to do can get done ahead of time.  Mainly, I just absolutely HATE the NWB orders (though of course I understand why). This will be my third go-round in as many years. And I swear this ortho boot has grown onto my leg; I'd imagine I'll still be in it until at least Christmas time.

Trying to find bright spots:  (1) it's outpatient surgery, about 2 hours; (2) they'll take the bone graft from my heel, not my hip (so only 1 incision to worry about); and (3) think of all the crocheting I can get done while sitting on my fat butt all summer and fall.  :-/

TL; DR version:  getting old sucks. (And I'm "only" 63.)

Quote from: selecter on May 12, 2024, 06:21:17 AMWhat publicly available info can show administrative bloat? I can imagine trying to glean it form IPEDS, or maybe from the top end of a form 990, but don't know what could get at it with accuracy.

There is data on The Chronicle for the pay and number of non-instructional employees, data on CUPA-HR (if you have a login), individual institutional websites often post data due to sunshine laws, and I'm sure my undergrad alma mater isn't the only place where the student newspaper publishes the salary of every single employee every year. I just had a bit of time on my hands and went searching for data. Is it 100% accurate? Probably not, but it's there if you look for it and can give a good idea of the number of administrators at a given institution. Just using the overall category of 'non-instructional employees' on the Chronicle's site shows that Penn State has a LOT more of those than my grad school alma mater so I wonder what all those people are doing and how necessary they all are?