Dorothy Parker has no idea how many lives she saved by issuing this warning statement in the 1920s. If texting while driving is dangerous, just think how hazardous the roads would be if women, such as me, were driving without glasses! Men would be leaping out of cars at every stop light and intersection to make a pass. I would be a danger everywhere I drove if the police hadn’t protected the general public by stamping “Restriction: corrective lenses” on my driver’s license.
Feeling a kinship with Miss Parker, I did a little research. Did you know that she coined the phrase, “What fresh hell is this?” while she was working at a community college doing room changes? It’s true! And I keep the tradition alive by screaming that very apt phrase every time a new email comes in. Try doing that in your own office! Just don’t do it with a student standing at your door waiting to talk to you. Unless you are about to retire or have tenure.
Now don’t get me wrong. Room changes are what keep me in Diet Coke and corrective lenses. It’s the timing of the room change and the lack of information that start me screaming.
Let’s start with timing. If you have specific room needs (and if you don’t you are the only one), you should let me know as soon as you know what you are teaching.
There is such a thing as letting me know too early—the ‘can you put all my classes in smart classrooms next semester’ request. I have to be honest and say that I am not going to save this request and keep checking Banner to see when you are assigned your classes and what they are.
If you let me know too late, i.e. after the students have their schedules, it’s much more difficult to find an appropriate room. For the spring 2014 semester I had 106 room change requests after the students already had their class schedules. That’s a lot of ‘What fresh hell is this?’ floating out of my office. A handful of these can’t be prevented. Last minute class assignments when another course gets cancelled etc. But there are probably less than a dozen of these. The rest could have been done earlier and would have prevented confusion on the first day of classes.
There was a professor once (now retired) who used to call me on the first day of classes each semester and ask me to change every classroom. I kept asking him to check his room assignments earlier because it was impossible to move all his classes once the semester started. He kept telling me, “I don’t work in the summer/between semesters.” I suggested he look at his class assignments BEFORE he left for Christmas break or summer and he said, “I don’t look at next semester during the current one.” I was so excited when he retired. I had a little party in my office by myself. As soon as you know what you are teaching for the fall semester, send me an email telling me what kind of classroom you need.
Now we get to the information needed to make a room request. My needs are simple, but important. I need to know what course you are teaching. “Please change my 098 to a smart classroom” just gets put at the bottom of the pile and stamped with my ‘Fresh Hell’ stamp. This goes for the “Change my Monday class to another room” and “Can you give me a list of all the rooms available MWF at 1:00” as well as “My 10:00 class is in Building 6 and my 11:00 is in Building 11. Can you move one of them”? No! Not if I don’t know what you are teaching! I used to send nice replies asking for more information but now I just send a succinct email saying “COURSE???????”
You don’t need to write an essay on your horribleness of your current room (although those are fun to read) or try to make a case as to why you need to move (also interesting). Rest assured that if I have the kind of room you need I will give it to you whether you have made your case or not. It’s not like trying to get a bank loan. I don’t care what you need the room for (size, windows, location, furniture, technology, better spiritual vibrations, better smell). If I have a room that fits your needs, it’s yours for the asking.
All I need to make a room change is:
Course (CRN is also helpful as some people give me the wrong course number)
What kind of room you need.
Do you know what you are teaching for fall yet? If so, let me know your room needs now! (Of course, I won’t be here in the fall so I really don’t care all that much.)
Deborah Benjamin
Regostration and Records
02/18/2014 |