One month

So, I have now been department chair for a full month. I haven't bankrupted the department and I haven't killed anyone! We have renamed the department and I have been officially appointed as chair (last week). I also got a letter of understanding in place to allow us to stay within the union contract. We have worked out a plan to relocate my old department nearer the other department. We have figured out where to put the academic portion of our departmental library (still need a home for the curriculum library). We've had one plagiarism case. And,  I have spent countless hours in meetings trying to understand the complexity of the other department we merged with. And, I have learned that just when you think you know what all the problems are, another REALLY BIG PROBLEM will come at you. About the time you calm down from that, another REALLY BIG PROBLEM will come at you.

I have learned that in dissolving our former school, the central admin decided a good idea would be to take our $$ pool that is meant to support student teaching (e.g., paying for mentors, paying for mileage, paying for university supervision) and repurpose it for other things. You can probably guess how exciting I find this great idea of theirs!

I have learned that the university rules or state rules or someone's rules, if adhered to, make it so that we can run one of our programs only using adjuncts. I'm really excited about this item, too (man, I need a sarcasm font)

I have learned that the state mandates a particular course we need to teach as part of the student teaching experience but we have no mechanisms in place to teach it. (Meaning, there isn't a course number, there isn't someone to assign it to, etc.) This problem, actually, is just baffling to me. It is one part of the weirdness of this program that I am actually looking forward to trying to work out

So, I have to pick which of these really big problems to tackle and how to tackle it, but all I really want to do is sit in my office and work on my research!