I'm sorry your services are no longer needed

I had to fire an employee this week. I had never fired someone in a professional context. I used to run pools in my youth. I fired a couple of lifeguards over the years, but never a professional. This person had years of teaching experience. She had relocated to this state for this job. Teaching was her profession, and it was tough to terminate her employment.

In the recent past, our popular culture made light of the act of firing someone. The hit reality TV show The Apprentice stars Donald Trump and members of the Trump Propery Group. His signature line was "You're fired". I watched the first season of The Apprentices Towards the end of the show, I really thought that the finale was degrading and dehumanizing. That it was akin to disaster pornography. We all want to watch the conflict on television because it makes us feel better about our lives.

This professor was fired because this semester she missed three classes without calling to cancel them. Specfically she missed two classes in a row right after
Spring Break. She had left and went out-of-state to get things out of storage. She emailed about truck difficulties, but the email didn't come through. The school's Learning Management System crashed the date she sent theemail and it idn't come through.

Our College has apolicy that if Instructors are goin to miss classes, then they are to use the telephone and call their supervisor and make sure that they speak to a person toconfirm that their message s received and that he University knows that the class will be cancelled. The fired Instructor failed to do this.

Additionally, our students had complained vigorously about this professor and more than half of her students had dropped or transferred to other sections. Simply put, apparently whe wasn't a very good instructor.

Ultimately, I feel like I did what was best for the students and for the instructor. The students will move on with a well qualifed replacement. The instructor now has the middle of their days freed up to look fr more appropriate work.

I knew what I needed to do. I wasn't, however, prepared for what the view from this side of the desk would look like as I gently and firmly stated, "Your services are no longer required." That may sound a little softer than "You're fired." But the implications are still the same.

Spinning Plates, Helping People, and Trying to Work a few Miracles

This morning was particularly hectic. I arrived about 8:45, and I was immediately greeted by a student who needed help with an outline for another instructor. I didn't mind helping this student even though he is no longer enrolled in my classes. Ricky is a 33 year old former felon who has kicked his crack habit and successfully won custody of his 5 year old son from his estranged, ex-wife, who is still actively using crack. Ricky was in my developmental studies English class and my Speech class. He made a "B" in both. He and his son were homeless for a brief time this last year in October. I showed him leniency in my attendance policy as he attempted to find a new living arrangement for himself and his son. Ricky showed up to school in September with a broken wrist because he had fallen off a roof. Ricky does roofing as an itinerate worker to try to make the ends meet. Ricky has been stabbed and shot. I know Ricky's story. I am rooting for him.

As soon as Ricky was up to speed. I helped Rhonda. Rhonda was a factory worker whose job was sent overseas. They fired half the work force on the spot. The other half got to stay on for another two months and produce inventory to surplus and then shut down the factory. She tearfully described the loss of that job like a death. She says that getting up those 8 weeks to go work a job that she knew was going overseas was the toughest thing she ever had to do. I answered her questions about an upcoming assignment. She left to go to class.

I had 15 minutes to prepare for class. My flash drive crashed because of some spyware, and I wasn't able to access the updates to my slideshow. Despite these technology frustrations, my time in class is the best part of my day. I love teaching about visual aids.

I returned student's video projects and was ready to go to lunch when I was confronted by a colleague who was nearly in tears. She had apparently gotten into a dust up with our Dean. The Dean had made several last minute changes to the schedule and the two of them have historically bad rapport with each other. They both hastily interacted with each other over email and both of them confided in me that they regretted how they behaved, but neither would take the first step towards de-escalation and resolution. This turn of events left me uncomfortably in the middle.

I also met with a student named Maria. Maria wanted to inquire about appealing her grade last semester in Comp I. Maria had to be hospitalized because of a miscarriage. She missed significant portions of her class, and made an "F". She has failed composition twice now and doesn't feel like she is getting anything out of the class. She is angry that she needs to retake the class, despite the fact that she has eight "0's" on different pre-writing assignments. I gently informed her that the timeframe for appeal was over and that based on my experience in different appeals over the years that she would not win. Her best bet is to study hard and take a CLEP test and move onto Comp II. She seemed pretty satisfied with that answer, and I referred her to the Testing Center.

The day ended up with a bevy of mind-numbing committee meetings, and a flurry of grading and uploading of assignments. I finally left the building at about 7:15 p.m.

The view from the other side of the desk is tough sometimes. You try to do some good for everyone. You balance the demands of being both a faculty member and an administrator. Most importantly you are there to try to help people. Good department chairs make students, professors, and dean's lives better. Some days are more productive than others. This one was rewarding, but it is awfully exhausting trying to spin that many plates at once. Some days they just wobble and don't fall. Other days, they all come crashing down. Today, I kept them all going, all day. At the end of most days I feel like listening to Taylor Mali's poem "The miracle workers". Check it out for yourself.