It is Monday morning and Thanksgiving break is nearly over—nearly over thanks to the furloughs. Usually on Sunday, I’m racing home to get ready for the next week. But I’m furloughed today and using my Monday furlough day to travel. I don’t have to go far, so I’ll probably fill it in with other things I need to do later. I can’t say what.
This year Thanksgiving has been different and it is because of the furloughs. While they have clearly negatively impacted the learning environment, in some ways, through the forced absence from the workplace, life has taken on a slower pace.
It is true, in order to keep up, everyone (I believe this includes administrators as well as faculty and staff) has to secretly work through furlough days which actually have proven to cost more than they save. But it seems like the more time away from campus, the more time for other things in life.
In a way, Thanksgiving started early for most of us. We had a number of mandatory furlough days and a lot of faculty worked more in with the idea that it would be hard to get students to stay on track then anyway. There wasn’t a mad rush to get home for Thanksgiving and a lot more time to grade all the stuff that we made due before Thanksgiving week. (Of course, we can’t grade on furlough days.) So there was, in one way, less pressure this year and more time for family.
Usually Thanksgiving feels like a sandwich. On the one side you drag the students through to the Wednesday before the break by giving tests or making assignments due. On the other side, is the dash to the end of the semester. (This year there are two more weeks of classes along with finals week. I need to work in at least one more furlough day before the semester is over.)
It has become harder and harder to get students to take the three days before Thanksgiving seriously. There has been an alarming increase in the number of vague family emergencies, odd travel impediments, dire illnesses, and even deaths that occur on those three days before Thanksgiving. In more recent years, these tragedies have started to occur in a higher rate on the Friday before Thanksgiving week.
I remember my first year of graduate school when our Wednesday night seminar met as usual until 10:00 P.M.–the night before Thanksgiving. One of our professors announced he would be holding office hours on Thanksgiving Day. But those were the good old days, when, as Sister Mary Lazarus in the film Sister Act put it, “nuns were nuns” and hard work was the rule.
But with the furloughs and the normal break—I’ve had, at least in theory, eight days off. So there has been time to get ready for the holiday and then enjoy it a bit. It has been a nice change of pace. I feel guilty about it. It is probably some confusion from my hybrid background of mixed religious impulses that all converge to reinforce guilt. Or it could just be the influence of my Grandmother Watts who was the Queen of imparting that sinking feel of guilt each time you had to leave. “Well . . . come when you can,” she would say weakly.
But on a more serious note–the truth is I can’t get out of my mind the looming realities of what the university is facing. Really the blog isn’t about the furloughs but the state budget cuts. As the holiday season commences, I’m well aware that I have colleagues, both faculty and staff, that are facing layoffs as early as next semester. A number of campus employees are struggling—their pay cut of 10% hurts and some of their spouses and partners have lost their jobs. Many are helping out family, friends, and even students who are unemployed or dealing with pay cuts and reduced hours at their jobs.
But the state keeps cutting. With each cut, more revenue is lost and the loss of revenue mandates more cuts. It is an accelerating downward spiral. I can’t think of anything that more closely replicates the paralysis of the Hoover administration between 1929 and 1932 when the country plunged into the Great Depression. We hear things are getting better outside of California. But it is hard to believe when we are dealing with students who suddenly find themselves homeless or going without food.
I’ll just make one more observation. Over the holiday, the news barely mentioned the continued threatened cuts to education. This was after the huge media fest over the UC students’ protest against the 30% raise in their fees. Maybe everyone is tired of thinking about it but it is more likely that the media doesn’t want to spoil the mood of shoppers. No, the big story was that Arnold Schwarzenegger, our governor and boss, was photographed parking his sports care in a red zone. (I believe that Maria Shiver was caught doing the same thing just a few weeks back.)
I know very few people who park in red zones—it seems like a sacred space. It seems dangerous and risks other people’s safety. When you see people doing it, nearly everyone seems upset and angry. There is always an alternative to parking in a red zone, no matter how inconvenient it is.
But perhaps this really was about the cuts. Maybe it was a thickly veiled story about what is happening to us and why.
