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*sigh* If only they would listen to me!
Jul. 22nd, 2014 11:23 amWe are due for our 7 year accreditation review. Anyone who has been through this, knows it is a huge, Huge, HUGE, report with tons of data gathering required before the report can be written. This isn't my first rodeo. This is my second and during the first I was part of a three man team responsible for the entire thing. This is to establish that I KNOW what I'm talking about.
Someone new is doing the report this year. Someone who has told me that she "doesn't need my help." Someone who should know better! I started getting nervous two years ago. 18 months ago I suggested that we probably needed to start collating the data. I was told there was plenty of time. 12 months ago, I nudged again and was ignored. 6 months ago, the same thing. The report is now due in 6 weeks. The coordinator is just now really looking at it. AND she's just now realizing that it's MUCH bigger than she thought.
What she doesn't realize is that there isn't a simple way to pull up all of the data and hand it to her. First of all, our licensure programs are spread across three campuses and 4 colleges. I have access to the information from our college and campus. I can estimate to some extent but I can't get accurate numbers from the other units. Secondly, we had a major reorganization in the last 7 years and the data is spewed across the data systems in three different ways depending upon how the college was organized at the time. Thirdly, the university isn't really organized to make licensure reporting easy. Our licensure students aren't flagged in any way. Licensure classes aren't noted in any way. So to pull data on students or classes, I have to physically look at almost every class or student in our college to determine if they are in a licensure program. I have some shortcuts due to some organizational strategies that I've implemented in my time here but it still takes me quite a bit of time.
For example: She needs a report of the FTE of term-to-term faculty hired to work in licensure programs, by program. My only way of procuring this information is to pull a list of all of the classes we've offered using the TCE prefix in the last 7 years. Then I have to go through and mark each class according to the program and add the FTE amount that we use per credit hour. I have to look up any faculty member that seems to have a fixed term appointment or that I know changed from term-to-term to fixed term sometime in the last few years to find out at which date they no longer count as term-to-term. Then I can sum up the FTE to get the FTE in each program...that we offer, not the other units. Then I have to go back and figure out the numbers of faculty according to rank. Something I can do because I know the faculty but I don't think I can just pull a report. I might check though because there is a new reporting system that just came online at the beginning of Summer term.
That is addressing one or two questions of the dozens we are likely to have. In fact I have a list of such questions already that is a full page long...and she doesn't need my help you know </sarcasm>.
Another question she had today was if she could get a list of scholarly activities that the faculty have been involved in for the last 7 years....nope, we don't have it. You'll have to pull it from the faculty themselves- most of whom are on summer break.
Equally as frustrating is that these request come with no parameters... Ok you need to know how many faculty we have. Over what time period? Is this a snap shot or a cumulative collection of the last 7 years? Every question she asks I'm having to send back a request for parameters.
Oye, my capacity for "stupid" is diminishing rapidly.
Someone new is doing the report this year. Someone who has told me that she "doesn't need my help." Someone who should know better! I started getting nervous two years ago. 18 months ago I suggested that we probably needed to start collating the data. I was told there was plenty of time. 12 months ago, I nudged again and was ignored. 6 months ago, the same thing. The report is now due in 6 weeks. The coordinator is just now really looking at it. AND she's just now realizing that it's MUCH bigger than she thought.
What she doesn't realize is that there isn't a simple way to pull up all of the data and hand it to her. First of all, our licensure programs are spread across three campuses and 4 colleges. I have access to the information from our college and campus. I can estimate to some extent but I can't get accurate numbers from the other units. Secondly, we had a major reorganization in the last 7 years and the data is spewed across the data systems in three different ways depending upon how the college was organized at the time. Thirdly, the university isn't really organized to make licensure reporting easy. Our licensure students aren't flagged in any way. Licensure classes aren't noted in any way. So to pull data on students or classes, I have to physically look at almost every class or student in our college to determine if they are in a licensure program. I have some shortcuts due to some organizational strategies that I've implemented in my time here but it still takes me quite a bit of time.
For example: She needs a report of the FTE of term-to-term faculty hired to work in licensure programs, by program. My only way of procuring this information is to pull a list of all of the classes we've offered using the TCE prefix in the last 7 years. Then I have to go through and mark each class according to the program and add the FTE amount that we use per credit hour. I have to look up any faculty member that seems to have a fixed term appointment or that I know changed from term-to-term to fixed term sometime in the last few years to find out at which date they no longer count as term-to-term. Then I can sum up the FTE to get the FTE in each program...that we offer, not the other units. Then I have to go back and figure out the numbers of faculty according to rank. Something I can do because I know the faculty but I don't think I can just pull a report. I might check though because there is a new reporting system that just came online at the beginning of Summer term.
That is addressing one or two questions of the dozens we are likely to have. In fact I have a list of such questions already that is a full page long...and she doesn't need my help you know </sarcasm>.
Another question she had today was if she could get a list of scholarly activities that the faculty have been involved in for the last 7 years....nope, we don't have it. You'll have to pull it from the faculty themselves- most of whom are on summer break.
Equally as frustrating is that these request come with no parameters... Ok you need to know how many faculty we have. Over what time period? Is this a snap shot or a cumulative collection of the last 7 years? Every question she asks I'm having to send back a request for parameters.
Oye, my capacity for "stupid" is diminishing rapidly.
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