Employees Develop

At the annual “Jimmy’s Day” event today in Shoreview, Minnesota, employees of Century College developed.

The development in question was in accordance with the college’s plan.

“We are pleased to announce that today employees developed,” a college spokesperson said.

An anonymous administrator agreed. “I have never seen such development.”

Faculty are expected to continue to develop tomorrow at an unrelated event in Minneapolis. Further staff development is not expected at this time.

“If you come to the college on Monday, you will see some developed people,” an appreciative employee commented. “I like developing!”

Other duty day headlines:

• Century to Achieve the Bridge to a Dream of Success
• Inspirational speakers somehow depressing
• Police vow to locate missing “display copy” cookbook
• Employee unions demand that future performance reviews be done in a spirit of “appreciative inquiry”
• Following “Locomotion” performance, 15 hospitalized with embarrassment-related conditions

Century launches “minimal learning week”

Century College next week will launch the latest campus initiative, “Minimal Learning Week.” The event is expected to result in the least learning possible during any single non-spring-break week during a semester.

“We saw an opportunity to do something that had never been attempted before,” a spokesperson for the college explained. “With a Monday holiday, we realized that putting two [professional] development days at the end of the week would really minimize class time and instructor-student contact.”

On Monday the college will be closed for the Presidents’ Day holiday. Thursday the college celebrates its traditional “Jimmy’s Day” event at Jimmy’s conference center in Shoreview. Finally, on Friday, faculty are sent to Minneapolis Community and Technical College to take part in the latest mutant offspring of the Metro Alliance events from years ago.

“It’s the perfect design to guarantee minimal learning,” a proud administrator explained. “With classes only being held on Tuesday and Wednesday, most day classes will meet only once. Classes that meet once a week on Monday, Thursday, or Friday won’t meet at all.

“We tried to find a way to cancel the Tuesday and Wednesday evening classes too, but we just couldn’t. Maybe next year we’ll get lucky and have a special election or something to help us out.”

Still, some faculty are concerned that not enough has been done to guarantee minimal learning.

“Some classes meet every day of the week,” one faculty member observed, “so that’s still two meeting days. I can’t guarantee that [the students] won’t get a lot out of that.”

Because the main emphasis has been on preventing instructor-student contact, there is also worry that staff might generate learning beyond the minimal. But Thursday’s “Jimmy Day” requires that the campus’s various learning centers and tutoring centers be closed, so steps are being taken. Still, students will be able to work with staff without any new limits on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Nonetheless, Century’s administration remains confident that the goals of the week can be achieved. An anonymous administrator pointed out that with only two days of class meetings scheduled for the week, “Many, many students will not bother to show up at all.”

In the future, Century hopes to perfect Minimal Learning Week and make it into the kind of award-winning, oft-imitated initiative the college is known for. “Who knows?” a spokesperson added, “Maybe someday we’ll have ‘minimal learning month’!”

Coming August 2011: The Mid-Century Report

The Centuryon’s guide to February 25 “duty day”

Friday, February 25, is a “duty day” for faculty. This year, while the event will still be held at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, the name and nature of the event will change. To help minimize confusion, we have compiled this handy guide showing what is changed and what remains constant on this day:

For staff

New

• More faculty than ever will be confused about the event.

Unchanged

• Faculty who have not read their email will be confused about what is required, where they have to go, what they have to do, and why. They will expect you to resolve all of these questions for them, individually.
• Faculty will be off-campus for the day (or alternatively, trying to avoid being spotted in case it would get them in trouble), making it a day when productive work can be done or vacation taken without anyone complaining that you’re “never there.”

Administrators

New

• Don’t get to brag about how many “Century” presentations there are.

Unchanged

• Faculty who have not read their email will be confused about what is required, where they have to go, what they have to do, and why. They will expect you to resolve all of these questions for them, individually.

Faculty

New

• Now less choice about what sessions to skip.
• Need to pretend for a day to be willing to try something new to help developmental learners.
• Have to fill out forty fields with made-up information to register for event.

Unchanged

• Still expected to register and either show up or pretend you showed up.
• Still get to complain about always having to go to MCTC.
• Still get to be jealous of the MCTC facility.