Confessions of a Community College Dean

The rise of Super PACs and the glorious display of democracy that is the Republican primary season got me thinking about attack ads in other contexts. What if colleges ran attack ads?

Apparently, a few California community colleges have taken to rationing seats. Since their funding is entirely disconnected from their enrollments...

Just in case my nerd cred needed any burnishing, I devoted part of the break to reading On Being Presidential, by Susan Resneck Pierce.

The Boy got a 1254 piece (honest!) milennium falcon Lego kit for Christmas. He disappeared into the basement at 2:00 on Christmas Day, and re-emerged six hours later with a fully built ship.

I’m working on the executive summary for an annual report on a major grant. Much of the report involves importing budget numbers from wherever, and I have help with that, but the summary part is my own. Which means I have to write in the office.

I’m wondering if there are other productive ways of using January.

As a writer, I’m a little jealous of the folks who write business books. Most of them only need one idea to generate hundreds of pages. I have to generate five ideas a week just to blog!

1. The Girl actually -- and I am not making this up -- asked for her two front teeth for Christmas. As she put it, utterly deadpan, missing her front teeth “makes it hard to eat apples.” I thought she had a pretty good point. 2. Some successful hires at the college.