Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Moving on

As most readers of this blog will know by now, I have been elected to serve as department chair by my colleagues in Foreign Languages and Literatures. It's this, mainly, that has led me to decide it's about time for me to stop blogging. Here I'll try to explain that utterly momentous decision--and also another decision I made, to stay on the Faculty Senate. A third change to my status didn't require any decision: I will no longer eligible for "active membership" in the Faculty Association, as chairs have been classified as AP ("administrative professional") staff who are no longer members of the FA bargaining unit.

I'm not explaining myself because many will care about why Dave is doing what he's doing (though some anonymous comments of late have reflected an unhealthy interest in my nefarious motives, and should have fun commenting on this). Rather, the issues I'm dealing with here may be of more general interest than the trivial question of how I'm going to spend my time. So there's room for discussion here that goes beyond the charge that Dave is selling out, never had anything worth selling, etc. In a few additional posts I'll try to pull together some things I've learned from blogging and the rest since Namdar and I started this blog back in March of 2011. Then it will be lights out--though I suppose I'll leave the blog floating forevermore on blogger, comments turned off, adding to the electronic detritus of the internet age.