confessions of a committee whore

It was a good weekend, if a busy and exhausting one, in Sacramento, where we went to attend the CFA Assembly (Lauren always comes with me, because, as she describes herself in introductions, she's the "union groupie"). Before we left, I agreed to be nominated for an ad-hoc committee on the faculty constitution at Stanislaus. I've been on Academic Senate for 5 years now, and I want to be part of this committee in order to continue to push for broader governance rights for lecturers.

We took off early on Friday so I could get to the CFA Elections Committee meeting at 3-5 pm (I only met my class about half an hour and then had them break into groups to work on coming up with social justice arrangements à la John Rawls). The next morning I had to be up for the 7:30 am Faculty Governance and Lecturer Recognition Subcommittee, that I co-chair and that I instigated about 18 months ago. At that meeting we came up with the proposal to start another subcommittee, on lecturer employment status, permanency, conversion to tenure-track, etc. At the Lecturers' Council meeting I moved to start that committee, and that was approved.

The Assembly did a lot of business, most of which I'm not yet at liberty to discuss. This morning I had to get to the Assembly promptly at 8:30, because of the elections. We nearly beat to death with amendments a resolution, but I jumped onto the speakers' list for discussion and moved to close debate and call the question. I never received an ovation for a parliamentary maneuver before. On the way back to my seat from the microphone, I pumped my clenched hands over my head victoriously to the cheers; one delegate leaned back and told me I was her hero. The Vice President and the Treasurer of the union both shook my hand in thanks.

The Assembly completed work just before noon, and we got home about 1:30 or so. Since then, I've already written and sent out a draft of the charge for the new subcommittee and nominated myself to be the initiating chair. Lauren chuckled at this. I complain, a lot, often, about having too much going on - some days I can't even tell what day it is. I promised not to chair any other committees at the same time, and she chuckled at that, too. But she does it in a loving and supportive, if also slightly ironic, manner.