There was an elderly man who always carried a little can of oil

Many, many thanks to Maeve for doing such a great job of putting up lights in my Anderson Hall Apartment and decorating with beautiful snowflakes that she cut out herself. If you stop by Anderson 101 for standing rib roast on Sunday night - 8 pm - you will get to see her handiwork. Don't forget to sign up on the bulletin board, though.

Maeve is supergreat but sadly for dormgrandpop (no for Maeve) is will be studying abroad next semester. So dormgrandpop is looking for a new assistant to help out in CTE and especially in Anderson, with dinners, bulletin boards, etc, If you are interested, shoot Maeve an email. maeve.reed@american.edu.

What managers do.... Completing the Audivisual budget yesterday afternoon created space for me to work on larger CTE budget tonight. Budgeting should be a foresighted planning too, but all too often it seems to be an adhoc patchwork process. I feel really good about the AV budget, but don't know if I can produce the same results for CTE. Unfortunately this work is hard to delegate. My budget officer is outstanding - maybe the best at American University, but he lacks the skill to present buget data and especially requests for additional funds as an effective marketing device. I

If only I had another week to work on this.... it's frustrating. Sort of like wanting to write a really great term paper at the end of the semester, but having five to write instead of only one.

The page proofs of my new book came back to day. Managers don't necessarily write books, but faculty members do. I will say more about my book.... lots more... later. The title is Paradise Poisoned: Learning about conflict, terrorism and development from Sri Lanka's Civil Wars.

How many meetings have you attended that lack a clear agenda? I attend a lot of them at AU, but I think an agenda is better. We have developed a format in CTE that enables to us get through a lot of material in an hour.

Possibly, you don't know much about CTE. It helps faculty with their teaching and is responsible for the Blackboard system, for the computer labs in Hurst Hall, for the faculty corner and now, for AU's audivisual services. It has sixteen full-time staff members and about 50 graduate students.

Here is a copy of this week's agenda. It always begins with some 'words of wisdom'.

Management Group Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, December 08, - 10:45 AM
Performance Management Reports Today

There is an old story of an elderly man who always carried a little can of oil with him, everywhere he went, and when he would go through a door that squeaked, he would squirt a little oil on its hinges. If he encountered a gate that was hard to open, he would oil the latch. And so he went through life, lubricating all the difficult places, making it easier for those who came after him. People called him eccentric, strange and crazy, but he went steadily on, often refilling his can of oil when it was nearly empty and oiling all the difficult places he found.
L.B. Cowman in Streams of Devotion (1925; 1997)


Good News
Brainstorming CTE Web Site Maintenance
Performance Management Reports
Really pressing upcoming items (no roundtable, apart from this)
Report from the University Library; Committee on Information Resources
Updates for the CTE Calendar -
Notes, announcements and urgent items for discussion
End of semester good stewardship – our first priority
Note to faculty on Service Pac II – my plan (JR)
Mid year retreat 24 Jan 12-6.
Scheduling of pre-retreat events. December 22 – Completing the past; what worked and didn’t work & progress toward goals set at Spring retreat. 10:30-12:30.
IT on the spot
The AV department budget submission
The CTE budget submission
New Projects

Update on retreat priority projects and other mission critical ongoing projects
· Customer Relationship Data Base (Bryn)
· Installation/upgrading to Blackboard 6.1 (Lyn/Jim McCabe)
Space – setting up the CTE training room (Kelly)
Year-long staff training and professional development (Kelly)
Integrating the Audio Visual Department into CTE
· Adding audiovisual to performance data base ; adding graphical summaries to performance data base
Ongoing projects (Completion dates after this week):
Bulletin Boards and Display Cases (John and Maeve)
Installation of ISDN line in Anderson Hall Training room
Ann Ferren Teaching Conference planning (John, Lyn and Kelly)
Upcoming Events and Dates
CTE Holiday Party. 12/10 Fri 12-2
Blackboard 6.1 Seminars. During Finals Week
Blackboard 6.1 upgrade Dec 27-30
JR 1/1 with Dean Broder. 12/2. 2:00
ANN FERREN TEACHING CONFERENCE. FRIDAY JANUARY 7
Classes begin. 1/10 Monday
CTE Retreat. 1/24 Monday 12-6.

I sure hope I can finish the CTE budget tomorrow. I need to get on with other things, including shopping for a standing rib roast.