Yesterday was a disaster. I thought I would write my 500 words for the day on my paper, but as usual something else grabbed my attention.
One of the new students (Chelsey, I think) went to the library, where she ran into Ronnie, the interim academic director. Ronnie let it slip that the human sleeping pill (you remember Pete, right?) cancelled class for this week due to illness. As much as we rejoice at hearing that, we were all furious at the news–particularly because most of the new students need the credits, and those of us who came late REALLY need the credits.
Apparently Ronnie hit a nerve when he allegedly told the Rock and Chelsey that we would simply watch movies for that week and we would be “given” credits. That just didn’t sit well with us.
It made matters worse when we gathered to talk with Ronnie about situation, when he became extremely rude and almost walked out. I asked him to get Alex on the phone so we could ALL meet with her as well–to which he said he would.
He never did. The vast majority of us gathered in the great room waiting for Alex to show, but since Ronnie didn’t actually call her we waited for nothing.
When a student finally made contact with her, she agreed to meet at 3 p.m. In what seems now like a long string of passive-aggressive behaviors by all of us, I deliberately delayed the start of the meeting in order to let Ronnie and Alex sit just as uncomfortably as we did.
The meeting went terribly. Alex rolled her eyes at certain times during questioning–a mistake I was quick to point out. She did, however tell us that Dr. Kurtz from George Mason University would be joining us as a replacement, which only temporarily pacified us.
It took them a full day and several more angry emails for Alex to respond in detail to our questions. All of this could have been prevented if she would communicate with students in bulk rather than one on one. Some of them complained later that they wanted the “last 25 hours of their life back.”
Unfortunately, time waits for no man.
Hey, nice post. haha I didn’t hear it from Ronnie though (the first bit, anyway) but only through the EPU grapevine….