New personnel, and a little self-congratulation

I'll begin with the self-congrats. About two and a half years ago, I got involved in a little research project into the policies and procedures for lecturers to get promoted, which is called range elevation in our collective bargaining agreement. The policies and procedures are not specified in the CBA, so they are set locally by academic senates. But on many campuses (our included), lecturers didn't have representatives in academic senates, hence they had no voice in the estabishment of policies by which there own careers would advance or not.

So I began inquiries into establishing lecturer representation on the academic senate at Stanislaus. At first, I got a mixed reception, but I started to win people over, and by this time last year I had managed to convince the senate to approve a resolution amending the faculty constitution to include a lecturer rep on senate. The general faculty ratified it, but then the university president rejected it, saying that this was because it lacked specific procedures for electing a lecturer rep (of course, there are no specific procedures for electing a department rep, either).

I had resisted writing procedures last year on the advice of some who pointed out that it didn't seem fair to require lectureres to have procedures no one else did, and also because I was concerned that negotiating procedures would mean negotiating limits on elgibility that I didn't want to include.

This fall we started over again, and I managed to persuade people involved with working out procedures to keep eligibility as open as possible. It passed the senate again, then the general faculty ratified it again. Today I found out the president approved the resolution.


The new personnel includes one live and one stuffed animal, who isn't really that new to us. The real animal is a betta fish, a salmon-to-red colored guy who sometimes gets magenta streaks in his tail. I thought Harpo might be a decent name (he doesn't talk, he's red, he gets puffed up to act tough), but it doesn't seem quite appropriate somehow. So for now, he's just "Fish Fish."


The stuffed animal is a beanbag rabbit Lauren kept spotting in an open field on Del's Lane on the walk home from school. Eventually, she started mentioning she wanted to bring it home and wash it up, because it looked rather sad and forlorn there. Finally, one cool and gray afternoon, we grabbed it. It was filthy. It probably had critters living in it. But Lauren bleached it and washed it a few times, and now it remains here with us. We call it Homeless Bunny, or HB for short.

While I'm at it, here's a picture of the other living creature, Lancelot. Lauren spent the better part of an afternoon chasing the beast around, trying to get him to look at the camera for a picture. In almost all cases, the resultant photo has him looking the wrong way.

Although there's a good explanation for this, I prefer to think he's looking around him, trying to figure out where that sound is coming from that seems to be the sound of his name being called. While Lancelot is pretty, very affectionate, and has acquired a ridiculous quantity of nickmanes (Lance, Mr. Lance, Him, Lancey, Bunky, Binky, The Boy, Bunky-Boy, Sir Pukesalot, Stinker, Stinky, Minky, Spelunker, Spunky Winnebago, Nummy Muffin Cocoa Butter, Circus Peanut, Lance Without Pants, Lance With No Pants On, Schpunky, Schtinky), he can't be accused of being over-intellectual.