Faculty Appreciation

This morning, I'm sort of back to my normal school year schedule, as it has been for the last two years. I will drive down to Spartanburg Methodist College, leaving here at 7ish, to make sure I'm on time for the morning's requirements. We have a faculty meeting at 8:30 followed by a morning of faculty development workshops, followed by an appreciation lunch.I don't resent today's tasks. I remember a time when I resented quite bitterly being required to go back to campus during time when I wasn't teaching. The administration viewpoint at the time was that we should be on campus 40 hours, except for our 4 weeks of vacation, 2 around Christmas and 2 in June. We had a heavy quarterly teaching load: 6-6-5-5 when I started, 5 courses a quarter when the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale finally closed. At times there was money for more traditional faculty development, like going to conferences. But it was far more common for the school to save money by requiring us to do faculty development in…