From the Deans' Office

(2 deans; 1 office.  Know your apostrophe rules…)

Greetings to our loyal student body.  This is Caroline Bender, your Dean of Admissions, providing an apologetic update for our absence.  Academics do tend to break for the summer, but we might have told you we were going to.


We might have been more transparent about what is going on here on campus, to assure you we haven’t left forever.

You recall that Miss Bender joined the ranks of the Unemployed in October of last year, and this provided a lot of time and content material to give to you.  What it didn’t provide is payroll, so she took the first opportunity offered and returned to the cubicle. 

This has also provided a lot of material, but it takes me time to think through these things before they become public topics; and time, while plentiful, is not generous.  This commute calls for a little dictation software and an iPhone. 

Meanwhile, Miss Minchin was fighting her own Battle of Fallujah and working on an escape clause, even if she didn't realize it at the time.  Just a few weeks ago, our Dean of Students began a new role, summer began, and we have been giving the curriculum a break.

We expected you were too -- with kids at home, summer holidays, vacation spending, home projects, perhaps still job hunting....

Our congratulations to both Ian and Pilar, who completed their unemployment stint at last, and to the government for their continued extensions.  We want you to understand it is very tough out there -- still.  The "job creation numbers" you have been hearing about were a quarter of a million census jobs that have now ended.  Those jobs no longer exist and that workforce is out of work again.  Scattershot layoffs are still occuring in our workplaces, particularly in sales teams where numbers are everything and if you do not make the cut, you walk off the field.

Then comes the adjustment period -- the "feeling new."  I've been wanting to write about this since March, and now Minchin is in the same boat.  As you might expect, it is difficult for a couple of schoolmarms such as we are to both make the adjustment and reflect on it, much less sound wise while doing it.  So bear with us.  In the meantime, of course, YOUR wisdom is always welcome.  When was the last time you were new at anything on the job?  Was it ever the role, the company, and the industry all at the same time? 

It's a wonder I get out of bed at all, but if I don't there is all kinds of traffic to sit in.  And it made me understand what you mean by feeling there is no space for writing the blog-length essay on the things so much on your mind.

Our readers' survey was clear on the kinds of things you would like to read more about, and it is NEW ideas.  NEW approaches to the problems we know so well, and that means much more creative thinking from our entire community. Now we are in the full stretch of summer and I have a few hours today to put out some personal calls for content.

As we search for the New, we are also taking a new approach to requesting your content.  We have had much success with our 20 questions approach -- where I provide a questionnaire as a form of interview and you feel more like you are emailing than writing.   So I encourage you, when you receive your personalized questionnaire during your regular FB/email time, that you give a holla back.  I'll do all the rest.

If you are a traditionalist essay-writer and would like to drive your own content.... well, then where the heck have you been?  We need you.  Please also post your local networking events on our Facebook page for the benefit of others.

Thanks for staying with us.  With your help, we can get the fall semester started.

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Creative Commuting
Ian's Job Hunt Story